As we move forward in this XXIst Century, Brazil-Africa relations will intensify. This will involve growing contacts among the peoples on the two sides of the South Atlantic based on:

• 1. joint and concerted actions undertaken by social movements, and
• 2. the mutual knowledge certain transnational activities generate, such as:
  • a) Capital movements.
  • b) The movement of people, whether labour-related or in tourism.
  • c) Cultural exchange, and
  • d) Sport.

In the second half of the XXth Century, social movements with political density, considering that they supported struggles for national liberation and racial equality, had succeeded in conducting their peoples and governments, at different commitment levels, to internationally isolate the Apartheid regime.

The contribution by those social movements outside South Africa and Namibia succeeded in shaping a global and enduring solidarity, since it was, above all, based on the principle of the unity in action as practised by the main national liberation movements of those countries at the time.

The history of the solidarity of the Brazilian people with the African peoples in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and against colonialism in Namibia since the 1950’s until 1994 is therefore important for the reconstruction of international cooperation.

Instituto Comafrica, the former Brazilian Committee of Solidarity with the Peoples of South Africa and Namibia – COMAFRICA, based on archives that it has been maintaining and is presently also recovering, is retrieving this Heritage.
Regarding Brazil, Memória Comáfrica/Comafrica Archives is retrieving alternative historical sources that cover the period from the mid-1940’s through 1994, focussing on two important questions posed in recent Brazilian Social and Political History:

• a) The question of national or racial identity posed by Black movements in Brazil and their leadership while seeking elements of comparison between the struggle against Brazilian anti-Black racism and the struggle against racialism in Southern Africa.
• b) The question of people’s participation in public policy making, by making the Brazilian foreign policy a public policy, e.g. enshrining the principle of repudiating racism in international relations in the text of the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution, at the time known as the “Civic Constitution”.

From a safe harbour of historical evidence, those visiting this area of the site, which will be hosted at an own digital repository in future, shall be able to reconstruct the international cooperation by navigating through our retrieved heritage and also to the links that we shall provide from this space to the heritage and memory of sister organizations, that had walked with us on the same paths or along parallel lines.

While the past is discovered, lessons for the future will surely be learned.