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70 years after Bandung, the ‘Global South’ seeks leadership and direction
The world now, as in 1955, is primed for fundamental changes in power relations.
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Then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai (centre) arriving at Bandung’s airport on April 25, 1955, ahead of the Bandung Conference. He was flanked by then Indonesian Premier Ali Sastroamidjojo.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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Seventy years ago this week, in the afterglow of Asian decolonisation, 29 Asian and African nations came together in the Indonesian city of Bandung, seeking to give the developing world a new and positive direction.
South-South cooperation was embodied in the final communique’s call for economic cooperation and technical assistance at the conclusion of the conference held from April 18 to 24, 1955. But it went beyond that. As Mr Roeslan Abdulgani, the Indonesian secretary-general of the conference, saw it, animating the gathering of these diverse post-colonial nations was a “spirit of love for peace, anti-violence, anti-discrimination and development for all without trying to intervene for one another wrongly”.
