Bandung + Counterculture

     The meeting of delegates from twenty-nine newly independent nations in Bandung (Indonesia) in 1955 was an important historical event, representing over half the world's population and symbolizing an approach to issues of international politics, economics, and culture that differed from the paradigm adopted in Bretton Woods a decade earlier.

     As one observer (Jamie Mackie) wrote in his account of the conference, Bandung 1955:  "What Bandung signified in 1955 was that nearly all of them [the twenty-nine nations] had awakened by then and were demanding that their voices should be heard" (p.15). 

     However, with the exception of various institutions that would subsequently emerge after 1955 (such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the World Social Forum), it is probably safe to say that the "spirit of Bandung" has failed to make a lasting impact on the world scene, especially in the fields of politics and economics. The Declaration of Ten Principles, adopted unanimously by the delegates, urged a political agenda that was strongly internationalist in scope and an economic agenda that was vigorously protectionist in nature, particularly for those "underdeveloped" nations newly freed from colonial domination. For better or for worse, neither agenda has flourished in the last 50 years. Instead of the multipolar world imagined by the Bandung delegates, we seem to have moved from various forms of bipolarity (West-East during the Cold War, North-South in the post-Soviet era) to the current unipolar framework (whereby the United States is undisputedly the world's leading power and would certainly like to keep it that way).

     If the political and economic agendas of Bandung failed to materialize, then what about its cultural agenda? I think the answer to this question is less clear-cut.

     On the one hand, it cannot be denied that, once again, the United States continues to exert a strong influence on world culture.  Its movies, its novels, its food, even its "can-do" mentality, circulate around the globe to great effect.

     On the other hand, as the cultural critic Edward Said points out, when a dominant paradigm asserts itself there are always powerful "counter discourses." In his book  Culture and Imperialism (1993), Said examines the cultural forms and practices that make imperialism possible and allow it to flourish. Importantly, he also pays tribute to the creative energies that offer a "contrapuntal" reading of the dominant discourse. These are the narratives that help to unyoke us from absolutes and simplistic polarities.  These are the histories that help to reframe our understanding of the world and our role in it.

     So that when I read Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day or Bessie Head's A Question of Power, for example, I don't just read the story of an English butler caught in a moral crisis about his war-time activities, nor the story just of a Botswanan woman struggling with her sanity.  I am also invited to examine the narratives I use to explain my life, the narratives my nation uses to justify its actions. I am invited to question the ideological frameworks I adopt (consciously and unconsciously) to give meaning to my existence, the frameworks my nation uses (consciously and unconsciously) to give meaning to its existence. 

     These constitute what I think Edward Said would call a "contrapuntal reading"--a way of talking back to a hegemonic power.  These are the voices that, I think, should be heard over and over again if we are ever to pay adequate homage to the leaders of twenty-nine nations who assembled at Bandung with such high hopes five decades ago.