Bandung

The first large-scale Asian-African Conference, a meeting of formerly colonized, newly independent Asian and African nations, took place in Bandung on April 18-24, 1955. The five sponsors of the conference were Burma, Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. the other participating nation included Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Gold Coast (later Ghana), Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Nepal, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Yemen.

In his opening address, Indonesia President Sukarno announced, “This is the first intercontinental conference of coloured peoples in the history of mankind. India’s Prime Minister Nehru declared it “the political emergence in world affairs of over half the world’s population.” African American writer Richard Wright wrote, “This is the human race speaking…I had to go to that meeting. I felt that I could understand it. I represented no government, but I wanted to go anyhow…Only brown, black, and yellow men…could have felt the need for such a meeting.” There were no female delegates, although Indira Gandhi accompanied her father, Prime Minister Nehru, as an assistant.

Over fifty years later, in a time of neoliberal globalization, we might ask if the “Bandung spirit” still exists or if it were revived, what form it would take today.