Early Life
Edgar Zivanai "2-Boy" (nom de guerre) Tekere was an early ally of Robert Mugabe within the Zimbabwe African National Union (of which he was a founder member in 1964) during the fight for independence and against the Rhodesian Front government of Ian Smith. Mugabe and Tekere, having served eleven and a half years in Hwa-Hwa Penitentiary & Gonakudzingwa State Prison as political prisoners of Ian Smith's government, immediately left upon release and crossed the Eastern Highlands Border in Mutare through the mountains by foot, following the Gairezi river trail to Seguranza military camp in Mozambique, to mastermind and kickstart guerilla warfare, aided by Samora Machel, in 1975. The Bush War or Second Chimurenga raged on. harassment of Tekere's close family members and relatives by the platoon of Rhodesian Front Soldiers, Selous Scouts, Police Special Branch and Central Intelligence Organisation, under the auspices of Ian Smith.
During these trying times Edgar Tekere received the code name/nickname ("Mukoma") by close family members and relatives. Tekere was elected by a democratic process to be the first ZANU-PF Secretary-General following Zimbabwe's independence.
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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