Discussion Leader: Hadley
Readings
"The Bandung Conference," Explaining History Podcast, March 31, 2015, https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/nick-shepley/explaining-history/e/the-bandung-conference-37491494.
Vijay Prashad, “Introduction,” “Bandung,” “Cairo,” The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New York: The New Press, 2007): XV-3; 31-51; 51-62.
Balthazar Ishmael Beckett, "Why 1964 Cairo Mattered in 1975 Oakland: Intercommunalism, Internationalism, and Reactionary Suicide in David Graham Du Bois’s ...And Bid Him Sing," Callaloo 39, no. 4 (2016): 919-935.
Elias Rodriques, "Building Another World," The Nation, May 7, 2019.
Optional
Robert Vitalis, “The Midnight Ride of Kwame Nkrumah and Other Fables of Bandung (Ban-doong),” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 4:2 (2013): 261-288.
Alex Lubin, Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014): 111-142.
Elaine Mokhtafi, "Panthers in Algiers," London Review of Books, June 1, 2017.
Extracts from the opening address by President Sukarno at the Asian-African Journalists’ Conference, Bandung, 24 April 1963
In-Class
Powerpoint on the "Global 1960s"
Sukarno's Opening Speech at Bandung
Nasser's Republic: The Making of Modern Egypt (Michal Goldman, 2016) [clip]
Elridge Cleaver, Black Panther (William Klein, 1969)
Throughout this week's texts I’ve grasped upon a common theme of unification. In Prashads text “The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World” and the "The Bandung Conference” I’ve distinguished that one of the keywords happens to be “Bandung.” Prior to this week's readings I’ve never heard about the Bandung conference. However, I came to understand that the Bandung Conference is an Asian-African Conference. In 1955, representatives from twenty-nine governments of Asian and African nations gathered in Bandung, Indonesia to discuss peace and the role of the third World states in the Cold War, economic development, and decolonization. Moreover, the conference was organised by Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and India and was coordinated by Ruslan Abdulgani, secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia. The conference's stated aims were to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by any nation. The reason why I stated that I grasped upon a theme of unity is because this conference gave an opportunity for common understanding among Asia-African countries. Nevertheless, these countries stood together and had a series of goals in mind in order for their states to ALL prosper. First of all, they wanted cooperation among the new nations; to explore in advance their mutual interests; to examine social economic and cultural problems, to focus on problems of special interest to their peoples, such as racism and colonialism, and to enhance the international visibility of Asia and Africa in world affairs. On the otherhand, in Elias Rodriques, "Building Another World," we perceive the same common theme of unity in standing against the oppressors, the French who have been oppressing the Algeirs since time. For example, Simeon Brown (African-American) and Elaine Mokhtefi (American Jew) stood with the Algerians and exposed the police brutality and the French military torture against the Algiers throughout their work. The beauty within this text is that since time we see different ethnicities, states, races stand together against oppression in a number of ways.
ReplyDeleteOn the otherhand, within the two texts another keyword emerged “Non-aligned movement.” The non-aligned movement began in Serbia in 1961. The purpose of the movement as stated in one of my other personal readings “Education for Sustainable Development in the Postcolonial World” is the “national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign” (Tikly 76). I questioned what problems are being faced by the Non Aligned countries? I came to understand that they do not get support for Wars. They do not get any types of help such as expenditure, or borrow from other countries. They are separated from other countries who are in alignment. When searching the list of countries that are part of the non-aligned movement and there a number of countries listed but the ones that stood up to me are countries that are affected by war today such as Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, and a number of others. I was surprisingly shocked, and is this the reason why these countries don’t get any support for war? Due to the fact that they’re non-alighned countires? This is so interesting to me and I hope we can dive deeper into this event.
Best,
Aya
good analysis of the bandung-era solidarities at play, aya. i like how you connect different actors to the larger movements of which they are part. as for your question on non-aligned countries, i will be covering that in lecture today, but for now: the NAM still exists, but it was primarily a creation of the early cold war as a way for countries--especially those that were newly-formed, ex-colonies--to protect themselves from becoming a terrain on which the cold war was fought. it was mostly an aspirational movement towards neutrality and global diplomacy which did not pan out during the cold war, and has lost much of its relevance in the post-cold war context. non-alignment was just one of many diplomatic positions countries took in the past, and the 100+ countries in the non-aligned movement were frequently in disagreement and changed alliances/positions. and so the wars in the countries you mention in your post (syria, afghanistan, etc.) are not related to NAM at all but other, bigger factors. i'll explain this more in class.
DeleteThis week’s readings shined a light on Third World transnational solidarity, specifically focusing on the Bandung conference and the relationship between the Black Panther Party and Egypt and Algeria. As is evident throughout the readings, shared experiences of oppression, injustice, and colonialism created via Imperial powers and racial hierarchies foster solidarity through the layers of shared trauma. Because of this solidarity, nations and people who were subjected to such extensive evils are able to connect in a more layered and united way. While solidarity is a beautiful and powerful thing, as the readings show, it can only go so deep. When solidarity is the sole connector between two parties it is not enough to maintain united visions for the future. Under scrutiny, transnational solidarity breaks down. The Black Panther Party and their relationship with officials in both Egypt and Algeria sours overtime. The initial brotherhood that they feel is quickly stifled by their contrasting agendas, and their views of one another rapidly deteriorate, as they go from family in the fight against colonialism and racism to paranoid opposing parties clashing against one another.
ReplyDeleteSelf interest in promoting more personal or nationally relevant issues overshadows larger notions of unity. This clashing is evident within women’s liberation movements, as transnational feminism has often been plagued by essentialism and white supremacy. Within feminist movements, upper class white women have worked to exclude women of color and women in lower social classes. As is the case with Egyptian women who attempted to engage with European women in conversations of liberation. In the same way that white women serve as the foot soldiers to the patriarchy, they also maintain and perpetuate ideas of imperialism. European women dismissed the agenda of Egyptian women, so as to fully pursue their own needs, rather than dismantle their inner imperialist belief system. Though the oppression of women is a general and uniting cause, the solidarity within continues to fail, as the subaltern are constantly silenced in order for the elite to pursue causes that speak to their own self interest. Thus, solidarity is not in fact the same thing as understanding and shared experience, as one can stand in solidarity with a movement or cause, but if they fail to undertake it as their own then what is the point? I felt that the readings this week highlighted the power of solidarity and the importance of deeper understanding and allyship.
Key Word: Bandung Conference: The meeting of twenty-nine representatives of newly sovereign Asian and African nations. It allowed leaders to meet together, celebrate the demise of formal colonialism, and pledge themselves to some measure of joint struggle against the forces of imperialism, recognizing that two-thirds of the world's people had the right to return to their own burned cities, cherish them, and rebuild them in their own image. (Prashad)
Best, Hadley
Deleteexcellent response hadley--you clearly show an understanding of the different layers of solidarities in this historical moment and how the discourse of solidarity is often undermined by actions and contrasting agendas. i also like your comparison to transnational feminist movements!
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ReplyDeleteThe two concepts that stuck out to me in this week's readings were the “Third World Project” and the “Bandung Conference”.
ReplyDeleteBefore these readings, I had always thought of the term “Third World” as a broad title for developing countries. It wasn’t until I read the introduction to “The Darker Nations” that I learned that “the Third World was not a place. It was a project”. (Prashad, xv). The Third World Project originated as a result of Africa, Asia, and Latin America trying to understand how they can combat the mark left by Europe/colonialism. The term was “comprised” of the “hopes and dreams of their populations… and the institutions produced to carry them forward” (Prashad, xv). What I found to be interesting is how the existence of this project, let alone the unifying goal of it, has been lost on the majority of people, especially in the U.S.
Before this week's readings and podcast, I had never heard of the Bandung Conference. This conference was put in place to bring together 29 representatives of “newly sovereign Asian and African nations” in order to bring peace, economic development, and decolonization as a result of the Cold War. I believe that the reason that these projects didn't work out as planned was because instead of ensuring that each of the 29 countries maintained the same views, they were all put into one room to figure out the ways in which they could work together without a full understanding of any communal goals.
As Hadley stated in her response, “solidarity is not in fact the same thing as understanding and shared experience, as one can stand in solidarity with a movement or cause, but if they fail to undertake it as their own then what is the point?”. Is it true that this idea of solidarity was one that the Bandung Conference had, but because they did not have shared experiences or true empathy for one another it was unreasonable for them to form into something greater and more forward thinking? But if that is false, why is it that the Bandung Conference isn’t as widely known as other historical meetings?
One difficulty that I had this week was understanding how all of the events we read about (Bandung Conference, creation of the Third World Project, Algeria and the Black Panthers, etc) interact with one another. Would one use the title “Third World” as an umbrella term for the smaller things that occurred after its formation? Am I correct in stating that the Third World concept was formed before the Bandung Conference? Or are they all equal in their impact/did they all happen around the same time?
i'm glad you're thinking through why bandung is not more well-known in terms of international events/moments and why it failed to live up its original goals. but one thing to note is that at the level of governments and diplomacy it's hard for there to be "true empathy" that drives any actions of solidarity; rather, as we noted in class, the discourse of solidarity is often used to justify strategic political moves that have very little to do with the "shared goals" of the nations involved.
Delete“Change”
ReplyDeleteChange is always tough to achieve if you are the weaker part on the table. As illustrated by the readings, parties and nations fought to achieve solidarity. They were experienced an enormous flow of rigidity and fought it with resilience.
We saw how did Mokhtefi, tried to achieve justice and prejudice for the people of Algeria after her experiences in seeing the interactions of native French with the Algerian minority. She was focused to establish a new brighter path to fight racism and create a hub for the third world countries that fight for liberalism and freedom. However, it is too tiring to achieve solidarity and liberalism with countries and parties due to the human behavior of self-interest. A nation/person would always want to be on top of the pyramid and be the leader of a movement. This will affect the outcome of solidarity and liberalism as a whole due to the greediness of certain parties and nations to become the leader, and everything would collapse. It was shown in the Nasser era where he fought to achieve Arabism and also in the case of the engagement of the Egyptian educated female with her European counterpart, everyone wants to gain more than the other.
I believe all of the reading correlates one idea which is the idea of “changing” to something better. However, the journey that leads you to the better destination is the hard part to complete due to the self-interest of other’s.
I enjoyed the paper of the Bandung Conference, and how security and military strategies might affect the notion of a country. We saw that the U.S military supremacy had influence in the decisions of certain countries.
i like that you bring in self-interest/the national interest here to question how far solidarity can actually go. next time try to synthesize and quote more readings to illustrate your argument.
DeleteThis week's readings explores varying examples of times when nations and movements who have faced similar struggles look across borders to find solidarity and how the middle east played varying roles in these solidarities. Whether it was on a nation wide level such as Nasser's role in the Bandung conference and the Non-aligned movement, or it was more so on an intellectual scholarly level in the case of how Black liberation found a base in Cairo, I was given varying perspectives of what Egyptian trans national solidarity looks like. I found that in the case of the Middle East, it was often sought out as a result of colonialism. Defined by its struggles with colonialist power structures, Egypt saw a similar struggle in the black liberation movement and the Third World's desire for independence from the global powers. I was left feeling like the two examples were both weak examples of Trans National Solidarity, both didn't last past the struggles that defined them and fizzled out with time and wandering priorities. However, I realized it wasn't a matter of the examples we were given to read about. This was a theme across trans national solidarity across Middle Eastern trans national solidarity. I was reminded of the failure of the Arab League and the now much weaker solidarity Egypt once had for Palestinian. It seemed to me that nations of the Middle East had a long history of losing any idea of unity or solidarity. This makes me wonder if this is rooted in the cause of their allyship, is basing it on similar struggles enough? Is basing it on similar national identities enough? Can long term transitional solidarity even be possible without some shared economic incentive driving both parties?
ReplyDeleteThe terms which stuck our to me was" Third World Project" and "anti-colonial"
Best,
DeleteMostafa
the argument the readings make is precisely that we have to think about the discourse of solidarity and how much it can actually achieve on a practical level, and the differences between a solidarity enacted between individuals (as leaders of different movements and groups, such as the black panthers and their intellectual counterparts in egypt) or national leaders/governments (such as bandung). so the examples you are given rather show a trajectory of solidarity and a historical moment when those sentiments drove actions. for next time, please try to bring in more specific references and quotes from the readings to make your point.
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