Linda Annan talks to Malawian Global Voices Author Steve Sharra. Sharra is a blogger, freelance journalist, lecturer and educational editor. He blogs at Afrika Aphukira. He has published poetry and fiction, radio plays (Malawi Broadcasting Corporation) and a radio short story (BBC); and authored a children's book, Fleeing the War, which won the 1995 British Council Write a Story competition. In 1997 he became Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (USA), after Prof. Emeritus Steve Chimombo (1983), and the late Edison Mpina (1984) and in 1998 he was writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa (USA). In this interview, Steve Sharra talks about the Malawian social media space, his professional background and his interest in education, teaching and writing. Linda Annan (LA): Can you briefly tell us about yourself? Steve Sharra (SS): I was born in a place called Bawi, in Ntcheu district, Malawi. At the time my father was attending a police training college, so my mother went to live with her parents. My grandfather, a reverend, was teaching at Bawi Primary School. We moved to Zomba Police Camp when I was about a year old. That’s where I grew up. Zomba was the capital of Malawi going back to the colonial days in the 1890s, until 1975 when Malawi’s first president, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, moved it to Lilongwe. I attended Police Primary School, St Stanislaus Prep School, Nankhunda Seminary, and Police Secondary School. After secondary school I went to Lilongwe Teachers’ College, from 1990 to 1993, where I qualified as a primary school teacher. In 1994 I left teaching at became an editorial assistant of educational materials at Malawi’s national curriculum centre, the Malawi Institute of Education. In 1998 I went to graduate school, first the University of Iowa, and later Michigan State University, both in the United States. At Iowa I studied English Education, while at Michigan State I studied Teacher Education, and wrote my dissertation on curriculum aspects of peace studies in education. My doctoral thesis argued for the adoption of a concept in the school curriculum which I termed uMunthu-peace, a type of social justice based on African definitions of being human, and our interdependence as human beings. I returned to Malawi in May 2010, after spending three years as a visiting assistant professor of peace and justice studies in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State. LA: What’s the meaning of your blog name Afrika Aphukira? Is there a particular reason why you chose that name? Malawian blogger and Global Voices Author Steve Sharra. Photo courtesy of Noelin Zawazawa. SS: Literally “Afrika Aphukira” translates as “Africa will be reborn.” I chose that Chichewa name for my blog as my way of expressing optimism for Africa; optimism for an African Renaissance. LA: What is the state of Malawian blogosphere? SS: I think the Malawi blogosphere, in the narrower sense of just blogs, is lagging behind the larger Malawi social media sphere. I wonder if that’s exclusive to Malawi alone. On a number of times a Malawian blogger has broken big impact news, for example Boniface Dulani who was the first person to write about the University of Malawi academic freedom struggle just hours after it broke. That was February 12th, 2011, when the Malawi Police Inspector General, Peter Mukhito, summoned a university lecturer, Dr. Blessings Chinsinga, to question him about a lecture in which he had used the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt as an example to illustrate a point. More recently, Mabvuto Jobani has been blogging breaking news about police involvement in the murder of University of Malawi Polytechnic student, Robert Chasowa, on September 24th. Otherwise, it’s facebook mostly, and twitter to a lesser extent, that’s the most thriving form of new media in Malawi. LA: You seem to be a big advocate of Malawi. Besides the fact that you’re Malawian, what else could be the reason? Steve Sharra dancing at a wedding. Photo courtesy of Mpatso Chabwera. SS: That’s an interesting question, Linda. We have a Chichewa proverb that says “Nankununkha saadzimva.” It means something like one doesn’t detect one’s own smell. But I think my conspicuous advocating for Malawi comes from a particular personal history and identity politics. A number of my early classes in graduate school, 1998-1999, required us to do serious intellectual self-reflection. Once I started looking back to where I was coming from, I started noticing a number of very peculiar aspects of what it meant to be a Malawian and an African. I had never had occasion to do so when I lived in Malawi. I guess leaving your country and going outside your continent seems to do that to a number of us.