The constant gardener
Bandung Conference
Adam Sneyd,
McMaster University
Held between 18 and 24 April 1955, the Asia-Africa Conference was a
watershed event in anti-colonial politics and modern international
relations. Twenty-nine heads of state and government mainly from newly
independent Asian and African nations, as well as representatives of
national liberation movements and civil rights organizations, were present
at this gathering. Also known as the Bandung Conference, leaders in
attendance included Indonesia's Sukarno, India's Nehru and a representative
from the People's Republic of China (PRC), Zhou Enlai. Participants
advocated self-determination and autonomous government for peoples in the
Asian-African region, and sought for the first time to build a collective
voice that would command respect amongst the former colonial powers and
within the United Nations organization.
In a spirit of cooperation and respect for national sovereignty,
participants debated the issue of alignment with either of the Cold War
blocs. Although states such as the PRC, Turkey, Pakistan, and the
Philippines were aligned, many in attendance took up Nehru's call to move
beyond defense arrangements that he viewed as only furthering the interests
of the two superpowers. The Conference's final communiqué reflected
Nehru's push insofar as it declared universal disarmament to be an absolute
necessity for the preservation of peace, and affirmed the principle of
"abstention from the use of arrangements of collective self defense to
further the interests of the big powers."
Conferees condemned colonialism in all its forms, including Soviet policies
in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. To improve their relative position in
the world economy, Asian and African nations noted their desire to develop
economic links within the region and obtain additional financing from
international organizations. Participants also used the language of human
rights to draw attention to racialism and cultural suppression. The
necessity of tolerance and cultural cooperation in the region to overcome
these colonial legacies was underscored.
The final communiqué indicated that the nations of Asia and Africa
were capable of articulating their desire for more autonomy collectively
and in a manner that was consistent with international diplomatic norms.
Western policy-makers were apprehensive about this organized appeal to
fully extend established principles of international relations such as
non-intervention, and uneasy about new principles such as the equality of
races. They questioned the PRC's involvement and feared that policies of
non-alignment could become a front for Communist influence. Worries about
an organized push for decolonization and the formation of a "non-white"
bloc were also expressed.
While no formal organization was established to implement Bandung's
objectives, after the Conference the pace of decolonization increased and
Third World solidarity grew. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was established
in 1961 to challenge Cold War spheres of influence, and the Joint
Declaration of the 77 countries articulated in 1963 at the United Nations
fuelled North-South debate about the ways and means to a more equitable
world economy. Many Southern leaders appealed to the legacy of collective
autonomy when then met in Bandung in April 2005 to mark the Asia-Africa
Conference's Golden Jubilee.
Suggested Readings:
Acharya, Amitav. 2005. Lessons of Bandung, then and now.
Financial Times 22 April:
15.
Asia-Africa Conference website.
Final Communiqué, 1955,
www.iss.org.za/AF/RegOrg/unity_to_union/pdfs/asiaafrica/bandung55.pdf (accessed 16 August 2005).
Fraser, Cary. 2003. An American dilemma: Race and realpolitik in the American response to the Bandung Conference, 1955. In
Window on freedom: Race, civil rights, and foreign affairs, 1945-1988.
ed. Brenda Gayle Plummer,
115-40. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press.
Mackie, Jamie. 2005.
Bandung 1955: Non-alignment and Afro-Asian solidarity. Singapore:
Editions Didier Millet.
Wright, Richard. 1956.
The color curtain: A report on the Bandung Conference. Cleveland:
World Publishing Co.