Seventy years ago in April 1955, twenty-nine delegations representing countries in Africa and Asia convened in the city of Bandung, Indonesia, with the bold assignment of addressing the future of the world. The Asian-African Conference has since entered the realm of Third World myth, at once celebrated for the collective sense of solidarity it generated — a political feeling that became known as the Bandung Spirit — but also criticized for its limited effects in relation to the principles outlined in the meeting’s Final Communiqué.
There are good reasons for emphasizing the historic nature of Bandung, as it is referred to in shorthand, that are linked to its size and demographic character. While preceding diplomatic events like the 1953 Asian Socialist Conference had involved Asian and African participants, the Asian-African Conference surpassed its predecessors in terms of scope and representation, with promotional materials arguing that the Bandung meeting reflected the aspirations of 1.5 billion people. Its only competitor was the United Nations, whose founding conference in San Francisco in 1945 also involved signatories from Africa and Asia, including Ethiopia, Liberia, and Turkey.
Still, much of Africa and Asia remained under imperial rule in 1945. The leaders who gathered in Bandung ten years later signaled the fundamental shift that had occurred in global politics following the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the communist revolution in China in 1949, and the independence of Indonesia itself in 1949 — to mention only a few examples of self-determination that were defining a new era of nation-state sovereignty against empire.
The path to freedom was not easy. The preceding decade had witnessed the launching of…
Auteur: Christopher J. Lee
