“Colonialism in All Its Manifestations is an Evil”: The Bandung Conference and Anti-Imperial Solidarity

In a recent post on Southeast Asian resistance to French imperialism, I discussed how Zohran Mamdani’s St. Patrick’s Day remarks serve as a model for teaching imperialism and anti-imperialism. He emphasized resistance, individual stories, and Ireland’s history of anti-imperial solidarity. I discussed how Mamdani’s first two themes appeared in French Southeast Asia, but I want to focus on solidarity in this post. Mamdani quoted St. Patrick’s words, “Weep with those who weep.” Expressing support for other people’s struggles against imperialism and colonialism has been a recurring theme in twentieth-century Irish history. As teachers, we can highlight how Africans and Asians regularly supported other people fighting against imperialism.

An ideal event to emphasize anti-imperial solidarity is the April 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. Most historians call this gathering the Bandung Conference. I’ve written about Bandung before, but only briefly. Representatives from Burma (present-day Myanmar), Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia, and Pakistan organized the conference. Historians often focus on how Bandung was the birthplace of the Non-Aligned Movement. While figuring out a response to pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union to choose sides in their ideological struggle, the conference also focused on helping still-colonized peoples gain independence and facilitating cooperation among African and Asian peoples. An ideal resource to help students understand the goals of Bandung is Selected documents of the Bandung Conference: texts of selected speeches and final communique of the Asian-African Conference. The Institute of Pacific Relations published this book in 1955. It includes five speeches from different representatives at the conference and a final communique that summarizes the conference. The book is also freely available online.

Ending Imperialism Everywhere