My Bandung Moment

     Why am I currently obsessed with the 1955 Bandung Conference,celebrated mainly by African and Asian nations newly freed from colonial domination, yet ignored largely by western powers? To answer the question properly, I might have to indulge in some Rushdie-type historical speculation.  It was Salman Rushdie who, in his groundbreaking novel Midnight's Children (1980), found that in order to tell the story of India's Independence day, August 15, 1947, his narrator would have to unravel his own life-story first, showing various points of inevitable intersection between his own narrative and the narrative of his motherland.  As he confesses to the reader early on in the novel:  "I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country" (p.3). I find that my connections to Bandung are similarly intriguing, and I am in the process of trying to discover why this is the case.

     I was born in late November, 1955. A quick mathematical calculation will reveal, therefore, that I was conceived at the very same time that the Bandung Conference was coming to fruition in the capital of West Java (Indonesia).  The meeting of leaders from twenty-nine countries representing over half the world's population took place from April 18-April 24, 1955. As far as I know, I was not born prematurely so it would be wishful thinking to say that I was conceived at the exact moment of Bandung's inception; nevertheless, I think I am permitted to say that my conception coincided with the gathering expectations of Bandung's impending birth.    

     Not that my parents knew (or even cared) anything about Bandung, mind you. Yet, strangely enough, they were indirectly complicit in the agenda that the conference pursued. After World War Two, my parents left a shattered Europe and sailed along the Mediterranean Sea, then down the Nile River, eventually arriving at Wadi Halfa in central Sudan. My father had been appointed as Chief Cotton Inspector for the British-owned Gezira Agricultural Scheme. At the time, Sudan was part of the British Empire but, by 1955, there were significant rumblings of independence in the air and my father had decided it was time to return to England. So, with three children under tow, and a fourth child on the way, my parents gave up the role of "colonial master" and got down to the business of starting a new life back in the motherland.

     I do not use the phrase "colonial master" disparingly. For that is the life that my parents inevitably lived while in Sudan. They were provided with a relatively spacious and comfortable bungalow by the government, they had personal servants, they even had their weekly bridge parties at The Club in a nearby town. Thankfully, they did not allow this form of "sahib" mentality to make a permanent mark on their personalities. Nevertheless, as I was growing up, and certainly now as I enter middle age, I realize that there were certain topics that simply would not and could not be tolerated at the dinner table. Also, there were some assumptions about race and patriotism that would not and could not be questioned. Make no mistake, my mother and (deceased) father were wonderful parents and, as far as I'm concerned, model human beings.  Yet, they seemed to have a blind-spot when it came to dealing with matters related to Empire, loyalty to the Royal Family, and supremacy of the Union Jack. In fact, it was precisely this kind of moral and political blind-spot that the Bandung Conference was trying to remove from the world's consciousness.

     I am not foolish enough to think that, over time, I have not myself developed certain moral and political blind-spots.  I am not a paragon of virtue. Nevertheless, I like to think that my life-journey has involved a gradual shedding of values and frameworks that may have been imposed on me by my surrounding dominant culture as I was growing up in England.  "Britishness," "whiteness," and "maleness" are not, of course, inherently bad. But when they are stirred into a pot with "privilege" (especially unquestioned privilege), then I think they become quite toxic and dangerous. It has taken me considerable time to learn this. My thirty years of "exile" (I left England in 1976 to attend Graduate School at Indiana University) have certainly allowed me to look back at my upbringing and my homeland in order to understand what is best and what is worst about them. More recently, my fifteen years living under the clear blue skies of northern California have allowed me to continue this journey with positive energy and spiritual support, for which I am most thankful.

     Where does Bandung fit in this trajectory? Frankly, I do not fully know as yet. I sense that the question is slowly revealing itself. My first priority is to understand the Conference, its goals and aspirations, in more detail. Then, I would like to know why the Conference has remained largely ignored in western circles. Finally, I need to investigate to what extent the Conference HAS impacted people and organizations all over the world in the course of the last fifty years. In attempting to answer these questions, I feel that I may be answering questions about myself.