Black Czechs

Black Czechs are a group of 56 child war refugees from Angola who were accepted for upbringing and education by the Czechoslovak government in October 1985. This was an act of international aid to the SWAPO liberation movement fighting for Namibia's independence from South African apartheid rule. The group consisted mainly of the children of prominent military dignitaries from the SWAPO military council, as well as generals and officers of the People's Liberation Army PLAN, which was waging a guerrilla war against the South African armed forces in southern Angola.

Namibian children between the ages of five and eight arrived in Czechoslovakia accompanied by educational workers sent by the SWAPO organization. The teaching staff consisted of six female educators and one male, who had the function of group leader, deputy Czech school director, and children's legal representative. In September 1989, at the request of Sam Nujoma, head of SWAPO, another 64 children were admitted to Považská Bystrica.

For SWAPO, Czechoslovakia was an ideal country to send their children to for re-education. Not only because of high security, ideological affinity, top-notch military, and high-quality education but also because of the friendly loyalty between the leaders of the ruling factions. The children were accommodated in a boarding school in Bartošovice and later in Prachatice. They were attending a special elementary school here, where teaching took place according to the current Czechoslovak curriculum in the Czech language. The children learned Czech quickly and it became their mother tongue. Namibian patriotic education was also included in the curriculum, taught by Namibian workers in the Ovambo language. Its aim was to acquaint children with the cultural, historical, and revolutionary traditions of their nation through propaganda materials, talks, and film shots. Military training was also an integral part, children were supposed to be prepared for cases of military mobilization in the future. The educational program for Namibian children in Czechoslovakia was operating under a regime of partial secrecy and was carried out in the spirit of social engineering. The national and regional press and Czechoslovak Television did not inform about the group's arrival in Czechoslovakia. The educational program was using tools of political indoctrination. The children were to be made obedient soldiers, ardent communists, and Namibian patriots - the new elite of the Namibian nation.

Their kinship ties within the group were also kept from the children. An information embargo, bi-national education, generous funding of the school, and special treatment of children by the Czechoslovak communist regime, which used them mainly for its own promotion - all of this gave the impression that this was a special program, the aim of which was to transform children into a group with a special mission. This political experiment was gradually eroded by the proactive initiative of Czech educators as well as the residents of Bartošovice and Prachatice, for whom common sense, human solidarity, and a motherly approach prevailed.

While the Namibian children gradually formed personalities with a strong attachment to Czechness, who linked their future life with further study and life in Czechoslovakia, the new political situation in both countries at the turn of the 1990s radically changed the scene of their lives. The communist regime fell in Czechoslovakia and Namibia was preparing for its first free elections. The Namibian regime demanded the Namibian children back, but without clear guarantees as to what would happen to them. After a long hesitation by the Czechoslovak authorities and their intensive diplomatic negotiations with the Namibian government, the children were finally relocated to Namibia in a controlled manner in 1991, with incomplete primary education, without any psychological and linguistic preparation. This political decision had far-reaching implications for their future. Leaving aside the initial climate and culture shock, the most serious problem remained that the children could not adapt to a new and completely different environment. They did not know the local language or culture. Their families, as well as their peers, represented a foreign group to which they did not belong. Many of them could not continue their studies, and some of them ended up in poverty on the street. The children suffered from loneliness, hopelessness, and cultural uprooting. The worst off were those who found themselves in villages in the northern part of Namibia in huts without electricity or drinking water. In addition, the children had to endure bullying from their peers and harsh punishments from their mothers and stepfathers. In some cases, these hardships led to serious mental disorders, excessive alcohol consumption, or even death.

At the end of the 1990s, thanks to the help of the Czech ambassador of the Czech Republic in Pretoria, a quarter of them managed to return to the Czech Republic for university studies. Half of them managed to complete their studies and thereby secure better positions in the labor market in Namibia. Other black Czechs returned to the Czech Republic only in 2019 through agency employment of foreigners. In both cases, however, they had to face racism, xenophobia, and the intransigence of foreign authorities. Currently, the majority of black Czechs live in Namibia, most of them in the capital Windhoek, or in the north of the country (Ovamboland). Only five of them currently reside in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, of the total number of 56, five individuals have already died and another five are missing. Most Namibian Czechs have their own children and, with some exceptions, do not live in a married union.

Even after more than 30 years of their lives spent in Namibia, Black Czechs feel a strong sense of belonging to the Czech Republic, which they consider their home. Most of them still speak the Czech language, or at least understand it, and maintain Czech customs, traditions, and European lifestyle. Members of the group meet regularly, either spontaneously or in the form of annual official meetings organized by the Embassy of the Czech Republic in South Africa. Black Czechs like to follow the political and cultural events in our country, and their lifelong dream is to visit the country they grew up in once again. Among other things, the group is currently seeking to make their history in exile part of the national memory and to be compensated and socially rehabilitated as descendants of prominent war veterans and national heroes of Namibia's independence struggle.