By Salomon Blajberg^*

During the 1980’s, in view of the blunt subterfuges of our Brazilian diplomacy regarding the relations of Brazil with the South African Apartheid state¹, it seemed utopian to think that some day formal mechanisms of participation of civil society in the formulation, execution and following-up of Brazilian foreign policy could be developed, something that only recently is starting to progress in the legislative Houses of this country.

The first demonstration against apartheid in Brazil was in 1959 - Brazilian players of the Portuguesa Santista, a Brazilian professional football club who were en route to Mozambique via South Africa, were victimised by Apartheid. The Second Secretary of the Brazilian Legation in Cape Town, Mr. Joaquim de Almeida Serra, then Chargé d’Affaires, probably was the first Brazilian citizen to demonstrate against apartheid²- his attitude forbidding the white and black Brazilian players to submit to apartheid by complying with racialism in Sports strengthened the movement against apartheid in sports in the very South Africa³ - at the same time, with his attitude, he gave the Brazilian people an exemplary lesson on how to handle racism in international relations. Just the year before, in 1958, Brazil’s national team with Pelé and Garrincha, had won the Football World Cup –. Patriotic sentiments ran high, under the government of Juscelino Kubitschek, the country lived the “Golden Years”, the construction of the new capital city, impressed the world.

Thirty years after this first anti-apartheid stance at a sports event, the repudiation of racism in international relations became enshrined in the text of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution , known in our national history as the Citizen’s Constitution.⁴

Despite the fact that Itamaraty⁵ acted in a contained way as regards sanctioning apartheid, diplomats such as Joaquim de Almeida Serra⁶ shall always be a source of pride for the Brazilian people just as many diplomats that institution produced.⁷

The anti-apartheid struggle from which Comáfrica originated, in addition to having lead to an international solidarity movement, the modus operandi of which was a kind of a prelude to a successful international linkage of social movements, a forerunner of the networking of global movements seeking the assertion in the XXIst Century of the globalisation of peoples as an alternative to the globalisation of capital, also had a great impact in Brazil.

One of main contributions of such struggle to formulation of foreign policy as a public policy has been, as mentioned above, the enshrining in the 1988 Constitution of the principle of repudiation of racism amongst the fundamental principles governing the International Relations of Brazil.

The processes that lead to the WCAR – World Conference against Racism, 2001 in Durban, South Africa, under the aegis of the UN have been closely linked with the anti-apartheid struggle, also representing the continuity of a whole process of citizen’s diplomacy and of non-governmental mobilization – “a foreign policy from below” have been developing since the XIXth Century, having its roots in the movements for the abolition of slavery, for Pan-Africanism, for the end of colonialism, for civil rights and against racism and intolerance.

Consequently, the Citizen’s Diplomacy, that is, the diplomacy that advises the civil society - “those from below”⁸, in the formulation and execution of foreign policy as public policy – the Foreign Policy “of those from below” - is not something new.

In Brazil, to those examples cited in the introductory text about comafrica.org⁹, such as Brazil declaring war to the Axis, the movement for the nationalization of oil under the motto “O petróleo é nosso” [Oil belongs to us] and the anti-apartheid struggle, it is added that of the Citizen’s Diplomacy in the 1990’s in the struggle against racism at Pan-American level and following international developments.

Despite the fact that the Durban Conference resolutions were mild as regards reparations or compensation for slavery, the international repercussion has favoured activism for compensatory public policies in Brazil, which are giving the tune to the present discussion in the media and in the National Congress on affirmative action policies (“quotas for afro-descendants”) as compensation for slavery.

This illustrates once again a concrete example of how the foreign policy when construed as public policy can have far reaching domestic policy effects.
Citizen’s Diplomacy has been active also at the level of local and federal state governments, levels that are also called in the study of International Relations as the “subnational level”. The closer contact of the local or federal state civil society with the respective subnational government levels also facilitates the formulation of subnational foreign policy as public policy.

As far as local government is concerned, a long time and traditional example is the twinning of cities, and local government support to international initiatives that bring civil society to meet internationally. At the level of federal states government we are reminded here of initiatives in Brazil that contributed to the recognition of national liberation movements as subjects of international law, as was the case of the resolution proposed by the State MP Alexandre Farah of the PDT-RJ to the State Parliament of Rio de Janeiro honouring Nelson Mandela by granting the Freedom of the State of Rio de Janeiro to Nelson Mandela in 1985¹⁰, and later the granting by the FAPERJ (Foundation for Support of Research in the State of Rio de Janeiro) in 1986 of a scholarship for training of an ANC technical cadre (who was in exile in Angola) in language mediation in Brazil, both projects for which both Comáfrica and IURI-Ineafric¹¹ contributed .

As a result of the growing interests of civil society in participating in the formulation of foreign policy, certain mechanisms are gaining space, as it was the case with the National Conference in 2001 aiming at preparing the Brazilian position at WCAR¹².

In the XXIst Century along with transnationalization, ensuing capital movements and migration of people, of the commodification of culture and the worldwide appeal of sports, one sees the shaping of a transnational public sphere, in which Citizen’s Diplomacy, more than playing a role of non-governmental surrogate for foreign policies of national or foreign states, rather seeks transborder unity of action in order to guarantee the respect for the human and civil rights of those peoples it actually represents.

On Nov 1st, 2006, Nelson Mandela said, when accepting the Ambassador of Conscience Award bestowed upon him by Amnesty International¹³: “People living in poverty have the least access to power to shape policies - to shape their future. But they have the right to a voice. They must not be made to sit in silence as ‘development’ happens around them, at their expense.”

Where conventional diplomacy fails, those people shall take up their right to a voice – they might have to shape their foreign policy, their future through verbalising it by Citizen’s Diplomacy.

Comafrica.org is open in the area of Citizen’s Diplomacy, that is, the diplomacy that advises the civil society - “those from below” to establish partnerships with other research and learning institutions, as well as other organisations with the purpose of reconstructing international cooperation by retrieving the heritage of solidarity, providing for the dissemination of information and for the revitalization of public spaces, creating a space for cooperation with Africa in Rio de Janeiro.