By Kofi Nkrumah

"Don't care where you come from. As long as you're a black man, you're an African. Don't mind your nationality, you have got the identity, of an African." — Peter Tosh.

"Before 1945, most Czecho-slovak citizens had never even met a black person. But ever since the first black soldier entered the country with General Patton's Third Army in April 1945, people ... have gradually got used to Africans and Afro-Americans."

So said Jarka Halková in a report on Radio Prague Jan. 31, 2005. As has been proven by history, that acquaintance was short-lived, and 1945 has since been consigned to the faint memories of the aged or to some dusty pages of history. The communist putsch of 1948 and the Cold War politics that ensued literally prohibited further free movement of (black) people to this part of the world.

African or black presence throughout the communist era was indeed very limited to a few diplomats and students on scholarships. And it was obligatory for such students to return to their countries of origin upon completion of their studies. It was only those who graduated at the dawn of or after the collapse of the Berlin Wall who had the opportunity of seeking their pastures right there, back home or elsewhere.

Some, if not many, chose to stay and today they are at the core of the African community in Prague and in the Czech Republic in general. Added to this category of Africans is a new wave of immigrants from both the continent and the Diaspora, who have been trickling in since the Iron Curtain finally collapsed.

No doubt, therefore, that black presence in the streets of Prague and other major cities in the Czech Republic is gradually becoming commonplace. There are Africans or blacks who have settled down to family lives with Czech spouses. Children sired from these relationships are equally becoming fairly visible and it might not be too long before some ingenious ethnologist, journalist or activist starts talking about black-Czechs, Afro-Czechs or African-Czechs.

For now, though, Prague is still far away from being a very cosmopolitan city in the sense of New York City, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Vienna or Johannesburg. "The African minority in the Czech Republic is ... not even included in official statistics." Not yet! Instead it "is placed in the so-called 'other minorities' column," as Halková pointed out in her report.

Indeed, before the 1989 revolution and even throughout the '90s, seeing a black person did not simply attract "casual, furtive glances, but looks of open curiosity," as Shawn Shelton observed in the December 2001 edition of Transitions Abroad magazine. A black person was spectacular and skin colour was a factor in most interactions with the native population. And "... even today, while most Czechs don't even bat an eyelid when they see ... Vietnamese owners of grocery shops, they will still often look a few seconds longer at a black African," according to Halková again. "Africans, especially black Africans, stand out in the crowd," she added.

It is not just about Africans and black people. There is an element that borders on continental Africa itself. Very little is known about Africa and especially Africa South of the Sahara. The peoples and their cultures still remain outlandish if not mysterious to the local Czech.

Thanks to the globalization of the skewed "Western" media in particular, starving children, wild child soldiers, emaciated HIV patients or even forgotten dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Uganda's Idi Amin are the images most people readily recall in association with Africa. Alternative information or images on anything positive about Africa and Africans have been virtually lacking.

Until Humanitas Afrika was founded, that is.

Thus the very motivation behind the establishment of Humanitas Afrika was to help shed light on Africa, the people, their culture and all those positive developments taking place within the continent and in the Diaspora that do not otherwise see the light of day in the Czech Republic. And since 2000, when Humanitas Afrika was founded, the driving force has remained focused on dissemination of information, raising awareness and building cultural bridges between African residents on the one hand and the Czech population on the other.

Needless to say, education on and about Africa and Africans is the very essence of Humanitas Afrika. And Humanitas Afrika has gone about achieving education through various activities, including documentaries, seminars and public forums that target the broader public. Another regular activity is African afternoons. These are sessions at schools during which workshops are conducted for young students on African cuisine, drumming, religion, family structure, languages, etc. The rest are cultural events with African music, dance, art performance, fashion shows and the like, regularly organized for all and sundry.

In addition to these programs, most of which are monthly or bimonthly, Humanitas Afrika has also pioneered annual celebrations such as Africa Day and Black History Month in the Czech Republic.

The icing on the cake, however, came at the beginning of 2005, when Humanitas Afrika launched one further pioneering feat in the form of the African Resource Centre that also doubles as a library. It provides credible and very well-balanced literature on everything African and has since proved to be the first port of call for academics, students, travelers, tourists and the curious. Beyond the provision of literature, it has also become the venue for screening documentaries and discussion forums or seminars. As one newspaper famously described it shortly after it was launched, the African Resource Centre "is more than just an academic addition."

"Until lions learn to write, hunters will always write their history for them." More than anything else, this proverbial saying is what inspires Humanitas Afrika most in everything it has been doing. Obviously the hunters will hardly ever pen a line on the heroism of the lions. It is about time Africa and Africans, at home and in the Diaspora, began to write and sing of their own heroism. That is exactly what Humanitas Afrika has been so zealously trying to achieve in the Czech Republic despite resource limitations and constant challenges.