Does the name Seraphino Antao mean anything to you? I should think not, as the time when its bearer made headline news is long gone. Sadly, Seraphino Antao died on the 26th of September this year. However, let me explain why his name should mean something to you:

In I962, at the then Empire now Commonwealth Games, held in Australia, Seraphino Antao assured himself a lasting place in the record books by running 100 yards – yes, the switch to metres was yet to come – in 9.5 seconds and 220 yards at the same event in 21.1 seconds to become a double gold medal winner. You could call him the Usain Bolt of his day, without the ostentatious, ‘lightening flash’ before and after a race. At those games, he also participated in the 4 x 440 yards relay but his team missed out on a medal. Come the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, he was chosen to be his country’s flag bearer. Unfortunately he became unwell and had to pull out of competition, handing over the flag to his compatriot, one Kipchoge Keino. And there’s the rub! Seraphino Antao was a Kenyan, born of Goan parents on the 30th of October, 1937 and bred in the Ganjoni and Makupa Estates of Mombasa. But for reasons that escape me, in that same year, that is 1964, he decided to leave for the United Kingdom to begin a new life as a British citizen. He only made headline news once again in the country of his birth when he returned to Kenya 38 years later in January 2003, at the age of 66, to be rightfully fêted as a hero at the 50th anniversary celebrations of Athletics Kenya. He had retained his Kiswahili, as he had retained his affection for Kenya: "We might be out there for a long time but in our hearts, this remains home," he confided.

Similar sentiments were expressed by the gentlemen who posted the following comment in response to an article on individual and collective identity that I encountered on the web: ‘Many years ago (1957/64) I lived in Dar es Salaam. Later (1988/95), I lived in Hong Kong, & joined the H.K. Jambo Club that had been formed by people who had once lived in East Africa. One of the members told me that he and his family had grown up in Kenya, and that he had just come back from a visit to Kenya. He recounted meeting with some indigenous Kenyans. When they discovered that he, a white man, had grown up there and spoke Kiswahili - they immediately said - "Ah. You're one of us." I found it very moving.’

Arnold Schwarzenegger must find it very moving that although he chose to seek fame, fortune and citizenship in the US, a museum has recently been opened in his honour in his native Austria. Barack Obama narrates in his Dreams from My Father that he was extremely moved to be reconnected to his Kenyan roots but, since then, political expediency has encouraged him to distance himself from them as much as possible.
Pan Africanists still dream of a United States of Africa, now not to be heavily funded by Muammar Gadaffi. In East Africa we can see the benefits of regional integration yet some of us are encouraged to put stickers on our cars proclaiming Najivunia kuwa mkenya – I’m proud to be a Kenyan.

All very confusing, don’t you think? What does become clear is that we are free to assume as many identities as we wish, free to reject as many identities as we wish but ultimately of the essence in our day to day existence is just which identity or identities others will allow us to assume or reject. So, to accept and respect each other’s self proclaimed identities will make for the ideal world of our dreams but it doesn’t seem as if it will come about soon. And in this respect, Kenyans have a track record that doesn’t particularly engender pride. In matters of inter-ethnic relations, we are only three years away from radio stations which broadcast this type of message, as revealed by the Waki Commission of Enquiry into the Post Election Violence:

‘Kikuyu are like mongoose which is ready to eat chickens. All other tribes, i.e. Luo, Kisii, Luhyas are all animals in the forest. They cannot be able to lead this country like Kikuyus.’  Ever fanning ethnic divisions amongst themselves, black Kenyans (read ‘Waafrika’) are far from setting the recent, Zambian precedent of seriously considering  white read ‘Wazungu’) or South Asian (read ‘Wahindi’) Kenyans for high political office. It will take a long while for there to be a President Patel of Kenya.

So, to come back to my point of departure: Seraphino Antao most probably left Kenya in 1964 because he was, ipso facto, excluded from certain job opportunities, as a Muhindi, after independence. Since the days of colonialism, Kenyan teachers of British and South Asian origin largely teach their own kind in the classroom. Kenyans with those origins are no longer to be found in numbers in the civil service, or in the army or in the police force. The list goes on.

These examples do not point to advancement but rather to retrogression. So, I do think that the story of Seraphino Antao as a returning hero; the story of the Mzungu who was embraced by Waafrika in a faraway place; the story of the museum for the Governator, the story of the future US President who shed tears at his father’s grave; the longed for story of a United States of Africa… however moving these stories may all be, somehow deflect us from the challenge at hand. The need for an identity with which the greatest possible number will identify in a spirit of equal opportunity; an identity which calls for shared experience by the greatest possible number; an identity which doesn’t necessarily move the feelings of the greatest possible number but definitely exercises the engagement of the greatest possible number. That’s a tall order.

By John Sibi-Okumu
In this regular column a teacher, writer and media personality starts from personal anecdote to present an outsider’s reflections on the experience of a different community.The views expressed are entirely his own. His website: www.johnsibiokumu.com