Dan Moyane - I Dont Want to Die Unknown: We Need To Listen To Our Inner Voice

Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

Chinua Achebe

T hese words by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, expressed to me during an interview I conducted in December 2020, convinced me that it was time for me to write this book.

However, the true genesis of this book lies in my deeply held desire not to die unknown; a desire that I was aware of from when I was a boy. It lies in the quest to make a difference, no matter how small, in the world. It lies in the desire to leave behind a footmark that will memorialise my roots. It lies in the desire that the children of my children (if we are blessed one day), and their children, must know that their identity is rooted in my fathers Moyana lineage, which goes back to an ancestor who was in the army of Ngungunyane Nxumalo, the last King of the Gaza Empire, who resisted the Portuguese colonial settlers in Mozambique. It is rooted in my mothers family; the Michaels of the Cape, who are descendants of the Cape Malay slaves, their Dutch colonial masters and the indigenous Khoisan of our land.

I know all of this because my father and mother told me as much as they could about their origins from memory, but a lot of detail has been lost along the way through our oral history. Memory has a funny way of fading; hence the importance of recording it in written form and hence my decision to commit, in writing, some of my memories.

I have thought about writing a book for quite some years now, but I was not sure about the topic. Around me fellow journalists have written books about events that have shaped our countrys march to freedom in 1994, and our post-democracy developments. I must confess I was tempted to go in a similar direction.

But, towards the end of 2020, Brand Africa founder Thebe Ikalafeng mentioned Chinua Achebes words during an interview for my #ConnectAfricaMoyane YouTube channel. Thebe was explaining why it is important for Africans to tell their own stories and that insight helped to crystallise the topic of my book.

This book is not about the history of the battles of my Moyana ancestors against Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, or my Michaels ancestors tribulations under Dutch domination in the Cape. Even if I wanted to document their history, it would be a near impossible task for me to undertake and do justice to. This book is simply the story of my personal and professional journey, starting with early childhood memories of my upbringing in Soweto, to my 12 years in Mozambique and my entry onto the airwaves of radio and television news stations and corporate boardrooms in Mozambique and South Africa. It is part memoir and part legacy. I am writing it so that, in future, the children of my children, and their children, will have a written account of my lived experiences, which are a product of a richly diverse region of Southern Africa, of which I am proud.

In writing, I had to go back into the recesses of my memory and assemble some recollections. This exercise has helped to enrich my awareness of where I come from, and therefore who the future progeny of my line will come to know as their ancestors, whose roots are richly entrenched in Southern Africa. Like me, I hope that they will be proud of their multiracial ethnic roots in whose blood flows Bantu (Tsonga and Ndau), Khoisan, Dutch and South-East Asian paternal DNA from my side, as well as Bantu (Gitonga) and Goan (Indo-Portuguese) maternal DNA from my wife, Odete Sousa.

I believe that nothing can be as uplifting as knowing your roots, understanding who you are, appreciating the journey you have travelled and ensuring that those who are yet to walk this earth after you will access your memory in written form. And with that consciousness they will continue to drive for more change, as did my Moyana and Michaels ancestors.

I hope that readers will be enriched and inspired by the accounts contained in this book. If even one reader resonates with something they have read here, I will have achieved the goal of ten-year-old Dan Tsakani Moyana, lying on his back and watching the moon from his home in White City Jabavu, dreaming that one day, he would not be unknown.

Nankhensa swinene thank you very much.

Moyana is our actual family surname, but when my father went to register me in the Native Affairs Department in 1959, the white Afrikaner official who took down my name spelt it incorrectly as Daniel Tsakani Moyane . Later, in the 1970s, when my father insisted that I must get my dompas, also known as a reference book (an ID document for blacks under apartheid), the officials refused to correct the spelling. My father didnt fight them. He told me, You know you are a Moyana. We are Moyanas. Thats what matters. We know who we are, no matter what is written in your pass.

Moyana! Mazole!

Tshuma!

Atshuma ayiheli, ihela hikufa!

Moyana! The one of the morning dew!

The one who prospers!

Your wealth does not end, it ends only with death!