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We owe a lot
to Bandung
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Fifty years
after the historic Bandung conference we live in a much changed world.
The Soviet Union-led socialist bloc no longer exists, nor does the
Soviet Union itself. The U.S. today is the sole superpower, with some of
its leading politicians and ideologues planning, writing and propagating
for a ‘new American century.’ Now that Bloc politics does not exist, and
decolonization is almost complete, many in the North write off the
Bandung conference at best as irrelevant history and at worst as an ill
conceived adventure that misguided the foreign policy of much of the
South depriving them the benefits of Northern aid, trade and capital. It
is rewarding to recall what the leaders of the Five Sponsoring Countries
said then in April 1955, to see how contemporary some of the key
concerns in Bandung were.
Welcoming the
delegates, the host President Sukarno warned: “I beg of you do not think
of colonialism only I the classic form…Colonialism has also its modern
dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual
physical control by a small and alien community within a nation. It is a
skillful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises.” He went
on to stress: “Wherever, whenever and however it appears, colonialism is
an evil thing, and on which must be eradicated from the earth.” This is
a prescient description on neo-colonialism, and would accurately
describe the occupation in Iraq and Palestine. President Sukarno also
called for peace warning: “No task is more urgent than that of
preserving peace.” Acutely aware of the limitations of the South’s
military and economic power, he called for the Asian and African peoples
to “inject the voice of reason into world affairs,” to “mobilize all the
spiritual, all the moral, all the political strength…on the side of
peace.”
Premier Chou
En Lai expressed similar sentiments and noted that “new colonialists are
attempting to take the place of the old ones.” He spoke of the urge “to
safeguard world peace, to win and to preserve national independence and,
accordingly, to promote friendly co-operation among nations.” He laid
down the principles of what came to be Known as the Panchsheel and
stressed the need for the respect for the independence, sovereignty,
unity and territorial integrity of states based on non-interference in
their internal affairs, and peaceful coexistence. The Egyptian
delegation also expressed concerns that have contemporary relevance.
While reaffirming their commitment to the UN the delegation noted the
failure of that body because of Great Power conflict “to act in
accordance with human rights, especially with regard to the countries of
northern Africa and Palestine…”
In keeping
with these sentiments Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru also stressed
“that moral force counts and the moral force of Asia and Africa must, in
spite of the atomic and hydrogen bombs of Russia, the USA or another
country, count…” He also raised his voice against any ideological
imposition of any ideology and termed this as “most degrading and
humiliating to any self-respecting people or nation.” Today we know that
ideological impositions ranging from particular Western-oriented notions
of democracy and human rights to neo-liberal economic reform are
widespread, and the ideological justification for illegal international
acts ranging from the invasion of Afghanistan, the occupation of Iraq
and Palestine, and the threats against Syria and Iran, to cite just a
few instances.
Many other
citations can be quoted from the speeches made in Bandung in April 1955
to demonstrate that the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary is not
merely a matter of historical sentiment, but on the contrary a matter of
great historical moment. Bandung is important today because its core
concerns remain, and in the absence of a countervailing political bloc
in the form of the erstwhile socialist bloc, are if anything more
important. Neo-colonialism is a major threat. The flagrant US-backed
attempt to overthrow President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is just a recent
example. This is based on a strident ideological campaign based on an
unprecedented control over the global media. This campaign is simply the
imposition of “American values” or rather those of a section of the US
power elite.
Backed by the
troika of the World Bank-IMF-WTO, the G-7 countries headed by the US are
trying to impose a particular economic model on other countries
throughout the world in the name of neo-liberal economic reform. This
term itself is ideologically loaded as the leaders of Bandung would have
doubtless noted. There is nothing liberal in this reform, as its respect
for individual and collective rights has nothing in common with the
major liberal political thinkers, and its economics is in many ways the
opposite of the great liberal thinker John Maynard Keynes. Decisions to
privatize public holdings, deregulate the economy, and reduce labour
rights are not just ‘economic’ decisions but are profoundly political.
Likewise as the UNDP Human Development Reports and other documents have
shown, these so-called reforms have aggravated existing inequalities,
and led to a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the
rich. The gap between the top 20% and the bottom 20% in the world has
increased from 30:1 in 1960 to over 92:1 now. Yet this neo-colonial
model is being sought to be imposed on the entire world. In this it is
aided by an ideologization of education especially in the Humanities and
the Social Sciences, where textbooks and learning materials published
in, or influenced by, the North and particularly the US, increasing
predominate.
For us to
build alternative models to this disastrous one, an economic solidarity
is a must. Economic ties including exchange of technologies, scientists,
experts, capital and trade flows should be matched by exchange of
experiences about alternative, more equitable, self-reliant paths of
economic development. Southern-based regional economic alliances which
are genuinely independent and not penetrated by the US and its allies
are indispensable. So are efforts to set up regional banks and financial
institutions which would act as an alternative to the World Bank and IMF.
This would require considerable political will, but there otherwise
would be no alternative to US-led Northern economic domination, and the
ultimate economic dependence of most of the South.
Post-1991, the
crisis of the UN has grown. The US is consistently trying to convert the
United Nations into the United States through a combination of coercive
and subversive tactics. UN programmes it does not like are not funded
and sought to be subverted in every way. UN personnel who are
independent minded are sought to be removed or shunted to less important
positions. For any genuine democratization of the UN, a unity of the
South and its alliance with some of the European major powers like
France and Germany, is absolutely essential. For that a return to the
spirit of Bandung is imperative. For the Security Council to be
democratized, powers of the UN General Assembly to be enhanced, the
ECOSOC, Unctad, Unido and other bodies to bring back the powers usurped
by the World Bank, IMF and WTO to the UN system, an assertive, unified
South is absolutely necessary.
Most pressing
is the issue of peace. Under the guise of proliferation of WMDs, Iraq
was invaded and occupied, even though WMDs have never been found there,
before or after the occupation. Iraq and North Korea [DPRK] are being
threatened by the US now. There is a blatant hypocrisy at work. The
Israeli nuclear technologist Mordechai Vanunu exposed the Israeli
nuclear programme nearly a couple of decades ago. But despite the fact
that it has a massive nuclear arsenal, an atrocious human rights record
including the practice of apartheid-type policies against Palestinians,
and the systematic violation of UN Security Council resolutions, there
has been virtually no action against it. Instead it has been rewarded
despite its apartheid and colonization. India and other countries of the
South argued during the formulation of the NPT, that there should be
safeguards against both horizontal and vertical proliferation. Countries
should not be permitted to develop new generations of nuclear weapons,
i.e. indulge in vertical proliferation. In stark contrast, the US is
trying to develop WMDs in space the so-called ‘son of Star Wars’
programme.
The Iraqi
people’s resistance has demonstrated the widespread rejection of
colonialism and the universal yearning for freedom, and shaken the
confidence of the US-led occupying forces. As has the sustained
resistance of the heroic Palestinian people has forced the US to broker
peace talks between the Israeli and Palestinians once again. But the
fate of all such resistance, and the costs to the peoples there of such
struggle, is greatly increased by the weakness of the Southern
intervention. This makes a reassertion of the Bandung spirit and its
upgradation including the inclusion of the Americas and Australasia
crying need for a peaceful and equitable world.
Millions of
people marched in the US in Europe in the moths before the Iraq war.
Something which had not happened even before the Vietnam war, as
protests increased there after the war had begun. Yet in the absence of
a assertive Southern alliance in the UN and outside to support France,
Germany, China and Russia, there was an insufficient counter force
against the US. Since assaults against Syria, Iran and then others are
in the offing, a resurgent peace offensive requires the renewed
commitment of the states, not just the peoples, of the South.
The challenges
are manifold. Building a strong peace movement backed by and responded
to the states of the South and their allies. Organically linking this
peace movement to those in the North. Building a similar worldwide civil
society-state alliance for a law governed egalitarian order, in which
politico-ideological and military intervention in the internal affairs
of states are banned.
To achieve
this, not only will the Bandung agenda have to be amplified to meet the
new challenges. But a basic political and social task that was earlier
neglected will have to be given pride of place. Fifty years ahead in
independent democratic existence, the politics of the countries of the
South has irrevocably changed. Now these countries, in the main, have
thriving, vibrant civil societies. The new agenda will not be confined
to states. It will also have to be based on the needs and urges of civil
society. This will make the whole revival of the Bandung spirit both
more meaningful and powerful. For instance, where states resist as in
the US and UK over the occupation of Iraq, the civil society interaction
between that in US and UK, and the rest of the world may have a crucial
impact and prove in time to be a corrective to an unyielding government.
In these times
there is much more that can be said about such a bold and sweeping
effort to reorder the world as was attempted with such success starting
in Bandung in April1955. The world has changed, so have the challenges.
But the basic hopes and urges of our people have not. We owe a lot to
Bandung. Most of all we owe our people the commitment and courage to
carry forward the unfinished tasks, so that our freedom will flourish in
peace and plenty.
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By All India Peace and Solidarity Organization (AIPSO)
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