I couldn't agree more with Antonio Menezes when he says: "Let us be fair to Kenya. African authorities could not have thrown non-Kenyans out , not even because they were British passport holders. They simply left Kenya because their means of livelihood were curtailed by the Africanization process."
I cannot speak for the rest of the Goans who left Kenya -but speaking personally, can I say how painful a wrench it was to uproot oneself from the land of one's birth and move to a 'foreign field'. I had no choice. I had a young family, and having experienced at first hand the bloody revolution in Zanzibar, I just couldn't subject them to any further risks much though I loved and still love Kenya, the land of my birth. This decision was also prompted by the fact that although I had applied for Kenya citizenship, there was a considerable delay in processing my application, with the result that the approval actually came along with the Notice of the Africanization of my post! Having worked for some 20 years for the Kenya colonial government, my pension and other privileges could not be guaranteed by an independent Kenya Government, nor were the prospects of obtaining a similar job elsewhere favourable since the clamour for more Africanization was accelerating and rightly so. The decision to move to the United Kingdom was made purely in the interests of my young family. That said, my heart is still in Kenya -a land and people who I admire, love and still correspond with and help as best I can. Mervyn Maciel
