Introduction: Towards Apartheid

In 1975 John Paul Young released a hit song, Yesterday's Hero about the fleeting nature of pop-stardom. It expresses a young man's recollection of his days of fame, together with the realisation that if he does not ‘get it together’, he will belong to the past. Although unrelated in many ways, it is a song that in some ways reminds us of the situation of South Africa's anti-Apartheid heroes. Many of these heroes, some of whom emerged already before this system of racial segregation was legally entrenched in South Africa in 1948, have since passed away and the remaining struggle heroes in South Africa, as elsewhere on the continent, are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable amidst changing local and global circumstances. Indeed, the claim to be struggle heroes or struggle veterans has in the recent past conjured up negative associations of identity and even (material) entitlement. In South Africa, and unlike some neighbouring states, its heroes (both those alive and those who have passed on) and their role in the liberation narratives often are under scrutiny and, in some cases, even criticised. Matters became more complex after the dawn of democracy in 1994, when, in the interest of national reconciliation and government policy to honour the full spectrum of the past, the anti-Apartheid heroes were inscribed alongside the country’s earlier history.