The 1955 Bandung Conference was an Asia-Africa forum, organized by Indonesia, Burma, India, the then Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Pakistan. Representatives of 29 independent Asian and African countries met in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss matters ranging from national unity, cooperation, decolonization, peace, economic development and their role to play in international policy. The ten points’ declaration of the conference, the so-called ‘Spirit of Bandung’, included the principles of nationhood for the future of the newly independent nations and their interrelations. After the conference most ‘non-aligned’ Asian and African countries opted for philosophies of national unity to guarantee peace and stability. Much is required of a philosophy of national unity. It should connect and inspire citizens via shared ideals, provide a basis for equal citizenship, construct a national history and national identity, being the foundation for laws and institutions etc.. Nowadays, changed international relations have created a diversity of views on secular or religious philosophies of national unity. This development has only made the question of the role of religion in this post-secular era more pressing. In the context of the resurgence of religions, the Bandung conference marks the increasing relevance of the choice at the time for a secular or religious approach. In the African case of Tanzania, the Ujamaa philosophy was secular although Tanzania had a ‘civic religion’. In the Asian case of Indonesia, the philosophy of Pancasila was ‘religious pluralistic’ by recognizing six ‘official’ religions. In both this and other countries, the philosophies of national unity are now contested. Therefore, 68 years after the Bandung Conference, experts from Africa, Asia and Europe do critically answer the questions: - What philosophy, secular or religious, succeeds or succeeded in promoting peace and stability? - Are there comparable philosophies of national unity from other countries?

In 1955, a conference was held in Bandung, Indonesia that was attended by representatives from twenty-nine nations. Against the backdrop of crumbling European empires, Asian and African leaders forged new alliances and established anti-imperial principles for a new world order. The conference came to capture popular imaginations across the Global South and, as counterpoint to the dominant world order, it became both an act of collective imagination and a practical political project for decolonization that inspired a range of social movements, diplomatic efforts, institutional experiments and heterodox visions of the history and future of the world. In this book, leading international scholars explore what the spirit of Bandung has meant to people across the world over the past decades and what it means today. It analyzes Bandung's complicated and pivotal impact on global history, international law and, most of all, justice struggles after the end of formal colonialism.

The 1955 Asian-African conference (the "Bandung Conference") was a meeting of 29 Asian and African nations that sought to draw on Asian and African nationalism and religious traditions to forge a new international order that was neither communist nor capitalist. It led six years later to the non-aligned movement. Few would dispute the notion that the inaugural meeting in 1955 was a watershed in international history, but there is much disagreement about its long-term legacy and its significance for present-day international affairs. Determining the what, why and how of this monumental event remains a challenge for students of the Conference and of Third World international politics. Was it a post-colonial ideological reaction to the passing of the age of empire or an innovative effort to promote a new regionalism based on mutual goodwill and strong regional ties? Were its principles of peaceful coexistence a rhetorical flourish or a substantive policy initiative? Did the Conference help define North-South relations? And in what way did the Conference contribute to the regional order of contemporary Asia? -- Back cover.

The expatriate, one of America's greatest black writers, giving a bold assessment of the world's outlook on race, a report of the Bandung Conference of 1955.

The Bandung Conference was the seminal event of the twentieth century that announced, envisaged and mobilized for the prospect of a decolonial global order. It was the first meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by any nation. This book focuses on Bandung not only as a political and institutional platform, but also as a cultural and spiritual moment, in which formerly colonized peoples came together as global subjects who, with multiple entanglements and aspirations, co-imagined and deliberated on a just settlement to the colonial global order. It conceives of Bandung not just as a concrete political moment but also as an affective touchstone for inquiring into the meaning of the decolonial project more generally. In sum, the book attends to what remains woefully under-studied: Bandung as the enunciation of a different globalism, an alternative web of relationships across multiple borders, and an-other archive of sensibilities, desires as well as fears.

Reviving Bandung -- Quynh N. Pham and Robbie Shilliam -- Sensing bandung -- The elements of Bandung / Himadeep Muppidi -- Entanglements and fragments "by the sea" / Sam Okoth Opondo -- De-islanding / Narendran Kumarakulasingam -- An Afro-Asian tune without lyrics / Khadija el Alaoui -- From Che to Guantanamera: decolonizing the corporeality of the displaced / Rachmi Diyah Larasati -- Before Bandung: pet names in Telangana -- Rahul Rao -- False memories, real political imaginaries: Jovanka Broz in Bandung / Aida A. Hozi -- Throwing away the "heavenly rule book": the world revolution in the Bandung spirit and poetic solidarities / Anna M. Agathangelou -- Lineages of Bandung -- Remembering Bandung: when the streams crested, tidal waves formed, and an estuary appeared / Siba N. Grovogui -- The racial dynamic in international relations: some thoughts on the pan-African antecedents of Bandung / Randolph B. Persaud -- Spectres of the 3rd world: Bandung as a lieu de mémoire / Giorgio Shani -- The political significance of Bandung for development: challenges, contradictions and struggles for justice / Heloise Weber -- Speaking up, from capacity to right: African self-determination debates in post-Bandung perspective / Amy Niang -- Papua and Bandung: a contest between decolonial and postcolonial questions / Budi Hernawan -- Bandung as a plurality of meanings / Rosalba Icaza Garza and Tamara Soukotta -- Conclusions -- The Bandung within / Mustapha Kamal Pasha -- Afterword: Bandung as a research agenda / Craig N. Murphy