31 May 2008

Family Background:

I was born Panganai Reason Wafawarova on the 10th of May 1967, to Robert Shangwa Wafawarova and Rosewitter Nyarai Wafawarova. My birth was a humble African rural one; in a village hut belonging to my late grandmother.

The village is called Panganai, under Chief Mukanganwi in the rural district of Bikita, in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe.

I was born third in a family of six girls and three boys and my late mother used to tell me that I did not make the usual baby’s first cry after my grandmother played midwife to help me out.

The tale goes like this. I was motionless and had a very low pulse and I was in that state for three days, after which I then cried; to everyone’s delight, and all was then normal.

I grew up under strict Methodist teachings as both my parents were devout members of the John Wesley-founded Methodist church. Although I later chose my own denomination, a Christian Pentecostal church, in which I am a member to date; the teachings I got in my upbringing still play a central role in my moral conduct.

Academic and Professional Background:

I attended my first grade in primary school at Dunuza Primary School in the sugar cane growing town of Triangle, Zimbabwe, where my father was working in 1974.

My father left his job the following year and I was then enrolled at Murwira Primary school, back in our village neighbourhood in rural Bikita. I did my Grade 2 from then up to Grade 4 in 1977.

However, this was the time when the liberation war for national independence from British colonial rule was at its peak and my school was closed at the end of 1977 – due to the escalating war.

I lost the following two years out of school as a result of this closure. The country got independent in 1980 and I went back to Triangle where I resumed my education at Mtilikwe Primary School and I finished my final grade in primary education in 1982.

I proceeded to do my secondary education at Zimuto Secondary School, sixteen kilometres out of Masvingo town, from 1983 to 1986.

I then moved on to do my Advanced Level High School studies at Chibi High School, some 50 kilometres out of Masvingo, from 1987 to 1988.

After this I worked as a Secondary School teacher (untrained) from 1989 to 1992, teaching in Triangle, Chikombedzi and Zvimba.

In 1993, I enrolled at Gweru Teachers’ College as a student teacher and I finished my training attaining a Diploma in Education (Secondary) in 1994.

I then worked as a qualified secondary school teacher at Sutton Mine Secondary School in Mutorashanga, Zvimba from 1995 to end of 1996.

I left teaching and enrolled at the University of Zimbabwe for an Honours Degree in Sociology in 1997 and I graduated in June 2000.

After completion of my first degree, I worked for a youth organization known as Zimbabwe Foundation for All Youth Associations (ZIFAYA). I had co-founded this organization with a friend in 1998, while we were still university students.

I left full time work with ZIFAYA in 2001 and I joined the Public Service where I worked as a Youth Administrative Officer in the Ministry of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation. As youth officer I worked closely with young people in projects like Exchange Programmes, the Children’s Parliament and the National Youth Service Programme, especially the placement of youths into new jobs.

I left the Ministry of Youth Development at the end of 2004 as I relocated with family to Sydney, Australia. My first job in Sydney was the recruitment of ongoing donors for such charity organizations as Amnesty International, Medicines Sans Frontiers, Wesley Mission, UNHCR, Cancer Council, Save the Children, Child Fund and a few others.

In 2006, I enrolled for a Post Graduate Certificate in International Relations at Macquarie University in Sydney. At completion at the end of 2006, I immediately enrolled for a Masters degree in the same programme, graduating in September 2007.

Currently, I am working as a consultant for workers unions and preparing to proceed with the remaining part of my studies for a Masters in International Communications, a course I started when I was doing my first Masters degree.

Political Background:

As already stated, my childhood was in a war environment and during that war for liberation we were routinely given mass mobilisation teachings in Maoism and the anti-imperialist doctrine.

After the 1980 independence, I remained in a political environment as both my father and his younger brother, my uncle were active political figures. My father was part of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, while my uncle was an elected official of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front.

My first vote was in 1985, when I had just turned eighteen. Then the political competition was so different from what we have today.

In 1986, two events made a lasting impact on my political views. On September 19, Harare - the capital of Zimbabwe, hosted a Summit of the Non Aligned Movement and among the speakers were Muammer Gaddaffi of Libya and the 36-year-old Burkina Faso leader, Thomas Sankara.

The radicalism of these two leaders, particularly the candidness in Sankara’s speech; made me take a position in defence of the oppressed masses of this world.

The second event was on the 19th of October 1986, the day Samora Machel, the Mozambican leader was tragically downed from the skies of apartheid-South Africa in an assassination many believe was the responsibility of a coalition of imperialist forces in alliance with the apartheid regime of South Africa.

I was so devastated with Machel’s death that I, together with seven other classmates, decided to abandon a Cambridge “O” Level examination paper that was to be written at eight o’clock that morning. We marched for 16 kilometres to Masvingo town where the eight of us, together with nineteen other non-examination students, demanded guns from an army barracks commander as we took it upon ourselves to declare war on the Botha regime in South Africa.

Our request was not granted and we were all persuaded to go back to school after being interviewed on national television. We were then driven back to school and my seven colleagues and me were given a chance to sit our missed paper. I remember I still pulled a distinction even after the disturbance.

From then on I just became a politically active person in whatever I saw as necessary. In 1994 I was voted the Student Representative Council president at Gweru Teachers’ College and I remember the confrontational demonstrations for, among other things, the welfare of students and an academic dress for graduating teachers.

When I later enrolled at the University of Zimbabwe in 1997, I immediately was involved in student leadership, first as an advisor to the Student Union leadership and later as a Union representative to the University Council.

My Writing Career

I started writing in the mid-eighties, first writing letters to different editors. My first published article was a commentary on the debate on the Constitutional Commission appointed by President Robert Mugabe in 1999, a commission whose work led to a constitutional referendum in 2000.

I was a member of the thematic committees on this commission and our role was research work on the behaviour of the electorate and the voting patterns.

I started writing newspaper articles on a regular basis in 2005 and in 2006 I became a weekly columnist with two newspapers. Since that time I have been writing for a number of publications and as of now I have an average of two articles published each week.

My writings have a Marxist slant although I consider myself a Pan-Africanist. I write on global politics, imperialism, African and Zimbabwean politics.

On occasions I also write on civic matters. It is my hope that I will have my writings published in a book for the benefit of those readers who have requested that I do so.

This website is just a beginning of that process. I hope you will all enjoy reading my work although that is not the intention of my writing. My credo is resistance and in resistance we generally do not enjoy.

I dedicate this website to my one-year-old son, Robert Tikomborere Wafawarova, and I wish him all the best in this world where justice is not a granted phenomenon.

Regards all.