Bandung [or Afro-Asian] Conference, April 18-24, 1955
- Leaders/intellectuals from Asia, Africa and the Middle East meet in Indonesia to promote economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism and neo-colonialism by the United States, European nations or the Soviet Union.
- Participants:
- iii.Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, Yemen
WIDE VARIETY OF IDEOLOGICAL POSITIONS:
a. China : Communist but split from the USSR after Stalin’s death.
b. SEATO: Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand [with News Zealand, Australia, France, Britain and US]
c. Baghdad Pact: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, Britain and US]
- Not united by Race or Religion
- “Living for centuries under Western rule, they had become filled with a deep sense of how greatly they differed from one another. But now, face to face, their ideological defenses dropped. Negative unity, bred by a feeling that they had to stand together against a rapacious West, turned in to something that hinted of the positive. They began to sense their combined strength…Day after day dun-colored Trotskyites consorted with dark Moslems, yellow Indo-Chinese hobnobbed with brown Indonesians, black Africans mingled with swarthy Arabs, tan Burmese associated with dark brown Hindus, dusty nationalists palled around with yellow Communists, and Socialists talked to Buddhists. But they all had the same background of colonial experience, of subjugation, of color consciousness, and they found that ideology was not needed to define their relations…”
- Richard Wright, The Color Curtain
5 Principles of non-alignment:
i. Mutual respect for sovereignty
ii. Mutual non-aggression
iii. Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs
iv. Equality and mutual benefit
v. Peaceful co-existence
“Irresistible forces have swept the two continents. The mental, spiritual and political face of the whole world has been changed and the process is still not complete. There are new conditions, new concepts, new problems, new ideals abroad in the world. Hurricanes of national awakening and reawakening have swept over the land, shaking it, changing it, changing it for the better.”
The Bandung Confernce:
http://vimeo.com/10081816
The Global Cold War and the Non-Aligned Movement