Bandung united half the world’s population against colonialism

Evidence

Held in the mountainous West Javan capital, Bandung, in Indonesia, the Asian-African conference was sponsored by the prime ministers of Burma, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, Indonesia and Pakistan, all of which had gained their independence during the previous decade. Representatives of twenty-nine countries, representing half the world’s population, travelled to Bandung to build political and economic cooperation. The conference’s final communiqué condemned the racial discrimination and ‘denial of the fundamental rights of man’ in the existing colonies, and declared colonialism in all its manifestations ‘an evil which should speedily be brought to an end’. At the same time, it stressed the urgency of economic development, including through foreign capital investment. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 275

Categorization

• XREF: Bandung’s simultaneous embrace of anticolonialism and foreign capital investment is highly relevant to the reader’s debate on market ethics — the conference was not simply antimarket. — connects to: Bandung’s anticolonial front was already split along Cold War lines — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 276; The Bandung Conference admitted states, not peoples, and excluded whole continents — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 559; Third World elites weaponized Western ideals of sovereignty and equality against the West — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1777

Broader Connections

• The Bandung Conference admitted states, not peoples, and excluded whole continents #qualifies (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 559
• Third World elites weaponized Western ideals of sovereignty and equality against the West #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1777