Africa is one of the five parts of the world, the oldest, the richest, it is recognised as the cradle of mankind.

Africa originates from Latin “Aprica”, that derived from Greek “Aphriké”, and is the name that the Romans gave to the Northern part of the continent that they knew; such terms relate to the meanings “sunny” in Latin and “without cold” in Greek, and those are concepts which have accompanied the European imagery transferred to Brazil and the rest of the World.

Brazil, a country of continental proportions is Africa’s transatlantic neighbour. In more than 500 years of documented history on the relations of the peoples who came to constitute the Brazilian Nation with the people of Africa, almost 400 were relations based on the Transatlantic Slave Trade, a trade that left deep marks both in Africa and in Brazil.

It is thus no wonder that, in Brazil, africa, is also a noun in the Portuguese language inherited from colonialism. Portuguese language dictionaries explain that it is "by reference to the celebrated deeds that were performed there"¹
Such so called celebrated deeds, in fact, were the looting of the continent, the deportation of Africa’s children into slavery.
The Dark Continent is another commonplace reference to Africa in the eurocentric imagery.

Frantz Fanon², a Black psychiatrist and social philosopher charged that never has the Negro been so black as from the time that he was subjugated by white rule³.

Thus, the eurocentric approach to Africa follows a trajectory of domination which constructed racialist ideologies through plunder, looting, ultimately giving rise to the nazi and apartheid ideologies.

Brazil owes much to her African legacy, which became accepted as a constituent part of the formation of the Brazilian nation – the country is usually cited as having the largest Black population outside Africa. Brazilians of African descent have been keeping Africa alive in Brazil – “They lived Africa, but did not write Africa”⁴.

Neo-colonialism, while reverting to the practice of looting Africa’s natural resources, fundamentally shaped the imagination about Africa in the so-called developed countries – the image of endemic poverty and of cleptocracy in the authoritarian regimes, in fact installed by neo-colonialism, is an image sold by the media as something inherent in Africa.

In Brazil such images are absorbed also by educated and intellectual elites – áfrica continues to be for the “white elite” something that is to be written in lower-case, that has nothing to do with Brazil, despite the fact that the sores caused by neo-colonialism or globalisation truly apply to the contemporary realities not only of Africa but also of Brazil. The subjugation of the African peoples, within a post-modern context, is characterized, just as in the colonial adventures, and in their neo-colonial sequels, by a globalised use and abuse of stereotypes such as:
• Prescribing for solving generalised poverty the so called poverty reduction policies;
• HIV-AIDS is the manifest destiny of the continent;
• NGOs are the solution to reduce such problems, which should not be left to the bankrupt State to resolve.

Such stereotypes also apply to Brazil...

The globalisation of peoples, does provide an alternative look at Africa contrary to what is conventionally known simply as globalisation:
• Africans migrate, impelled by misery imposed on them by the looting of their continent; when they migrate they take along with them knowledge, art & craft, which no doubt, not only enriches the lands to which they migrate but also can be returned to Africa.
• The media are today devastated by the whirlwinds of freedom and creativity provided by the World Wide Web; Africa is not at all lagging behind...
• The 2007 World Social Forum was held in Nairobi, Kenya⁵ from the 20th to the 25th of January.
• The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa - CODESRIA⁶ , was established in 1973. It was born of the will of African social scientists, and of all those engaged in social research in Africa, to develop scientific capacities and tools that would further the cohesion, well-being and development of African societies, doing this in a manner which encouraged professionalism, academic integrity, service to the peoples of the continent and freedom of thought.

The partnership between Brazilians and Africans, the cooperation relations among peoples are at the origin of the ComAfrica Institute.
Brazil cannot be imagined without Africa. Africans usually view Brazil as the unknown.

African Studies, the History of Africa and African Arts & Crafts find in this area of www.comafrica.org a space for scientific, cultural, artistic and educational cooperation.