Professor Jonathan Moyo is the subject of this African Fact of the Day (AFOTD) — please hold your breath before you jump to premature conclusions. He was born the grandson of an emperor whose grandfather’s domain covered present-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The eastern sections of Botswana fell under this empire, too. Professor Moyo was born at a time of social convulsions due to the appearance of the Portuguese who found themselves in a vicious and blood-soaked cycle of fomenting dissent and getting embroiled in the subsequent physical confrontations in Bukalanga-VuKaranga.
His grandfather, Gatsi Rusere, was an impetuous character who acted without thinking. When Gatsi Rusere executed his paternal uncle for failing to capture an invader whose army had been routed in battle, some members of Gatsi Rusere’s family, along with some of the courtier loyal to the executed military leader, were up in arms. By Karanga tradition, Gatsi Rusere’s paternal uncle was his father. So, in effect, Gatsi Rusere had not only executed a loyal army general but he had also committed patricide. To take the life of anyone no matter how justified that might be is, according to Chivanhu, totally unacceptable. The act becomes far worse than a dastardly crime if one kills one’s parent, be it biological or customary. Thus, Gatsi Rusere found himself fighting not only an intra-family but a full-blown civil war.
With his hands literally full, Gatsi Rusere had to enlist the military help of the Portuguese. Of course the Portuguese had fortuitously discovered that there was a robust trade involving the Arabs and Indian and, on the other end, the gold-rich African empire in southeastern part of Africa. The mining and processing of gold was already a tightly controlled industry involving the imperial government and its subordinate kingdoms. This meant that the Portuguese were not in a position to simply bulldoze their way into this trade without a mighty fight. They had to curry favour with the African leaders. When Gatsi Rusere solicited the Portuguese for military help, they were only too happy to bail him out. That military assistance came with a steep price. Once the war had been concluded in his favour, Gatsi Rusere was reduced to a Portuguese puppet.
In all likelihood, the Portuguese may have broken the strictly observed ancient court protocol. As they carried on in their cavalier disregard of ancient customs, Gatsi Rusere’s son, Kapararidze, who had not been handed over to the Portuguese for education, must have witnessed the mayhem and humiliation by the Portuguese at the imperial court. This may have turned him into a Lusophobe, with that hatred of the Portuguese culminating in a significant role not too long after that, and with ramifications or tremors that are still felt today. When his father died, Kapararidze ascended the throne. He was said to have harboured a strong animus against the Portuguese such that he replaced all his father’s courtiers and ministers in an effort to completely cleanse the whole place of the Portuguese filth and stench.
Of course the Portuguese did not take this well. They conspired with Kapararidze’s uncle Mavura to get rid of Emperor Kapararidze. By custom, Mavura had become Kapararidze’s father when Gatsi Rusere died. The same custom says that a son cannot assume leadership for as long as there is a father alive and capable of assuming the responsibilities of said leadership. In light of this tradition, Kapararidze’s ascension to the throne was in breached of the succession protocol. Using this as a pretext to get rid of the Lusophobe, the Portuguese worked in collusion with Mavura thereby precipitating a blood-and-guts civil war and a contestation for the imperial throne. Inevitably, Kapararidze lost and vanished into the greater populace. That defeat marked the beginning of the epic life of the luminary but now-obscure Professor Moyo.
He was captured by the Portuguese during the succession war. Records show that the royal youth was presented to what may have been the equivalent of the Portuguese ambassador in what is now present-day Mozambique. Lord Nuno Alvares Pereira accepted the youth but handed him over to the Count of Linhares, the Portuguese viceroy of India. In turn, and cognizant of the fact that the it was improper to make a prisoner out of one who had royal blood flowing in his veins, the viceroy put the boy under the custody and tutelage of the Dominican priests at Goa, India. At that seminary, the youth received secular and religious education. All the expenses were shouldered by the viceroy.
For their part, the Dominican fathers were more than happy to groom the son of the dethroned Emperor Kapararidze. In this venture they saw a publicity coup that was too good to pass. Their initial objective, having taught the youth in the ways of royal Europe and Christendom, was to take him to Lisbon. The Vicar-General of Goa, Father Geronimo, wanted the youth to be given a royal reception and accommodation befitting his royal lineage and, along with it, see the youth baptized with pomp and circumstance. All this was what we, in our time, call a choreographed showcasing before the European imperial courts and the Pope in Rome the successes of the Dominican Order in its proselytizing mission.
Although the youth did not make it to Europe as had been planned by his tutors in Goa, the Vatican and the Portuguese court in Lisbon were nevertheless spectacularly impressed. For this effort involving the education of the royal youth, one of the Dominican friars received a commendation from the Vatican.
The Portuguese king expressed a keen interest in the welfare and wellbeing of the Mutapa youth. In recognition of the youth’s royal blood and his acquired Christianity, the youth was under protection of the king of Portugal. Part of the Portuguese royal treasury was used for the education and protection of this Royal Mutapa prince.
For his part, the youth was baptized and given the royal and honorific title of Dom
along with the Christian name of Miguel. Lord Michael, as his title and name are rendered in the Anglophone world, inevitably became a priest who was known to be an assiduous scholar and a teacher. Records show that in his field of scholarship he received the highest possible degree of that time, that is; Master of Theology. Based on the fact that Lord Michael had reached the apex of his field of study and also went on to use that education to teach, the late Dr Stan I. G. Mudenge described Lord Michael as one who possessed the equivalent of today’s Philosophy Doctorate degree and, likewise, his professional title as being akin to that of a professor in contemporary times.
For this reason, I proudly call the son of Emperor Kapararidze, Professor Michael Moyo. I am in agreement with Dr Mudenge when he calls Prince Michael Moyo the first Zimbabwean and, if I may point it out, Mozambican “to receive a doctorate degree in any field of study” per European mode of education.
This is the African Fact of the Day (AFOTD), I am BTechno Moyo.