Richard Wright + Bandung

     The American writer, Richard Wright (most famously known for the novel Native Son and the memoir Black Boy), was one of the few westerners who saw the need to attend the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Unlike many of his compatriots, he felt that something important, perhaps everlastingly so, would come out of this meeting between leaders of twenty-nine newly independent countries (mainly from Asia and Africa). He sensed that history could be in the making. As he wrote in his eye-witness account, The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference, "The despised, the insulted, the hurt, the dispossessed---in short, the underdogs of the human race were meeting. Here were class and racial and religious consciousness on a global scale. . . . This meeting of the rejected was in itself a kind of judgment upon that Western world!"

     Perhaps what he meant by that last comment was that Bandung served as an important and symbolic riposte to the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 when European colonial powers (predominantly Britain, Germany, and France) met to agree amongst themselves how they would carve out great chunks of the world for their domination. These chunks were euphemistically called "spheres of influence" and resulted in European colonial powers taking control of much of the world (it was agreed that Britain, for example, would take much of the Indian sub-continent and parts of western and southern Africa; France would take slices of south-east Asia and much of western Africa; and so on). By 1955, colonialism had almost run its course in world history and one of the purposes of the Bandung Conference was to set the tone for a new world order, a post-colonial world, based on principles of international human rights, territorial integrity of all nations, economic development and cooperation, and respect for justice and international obligations.

     Wright was unambiguous in his verdict on the importance of this historical moment. He wrote:  "Bandung was a decisive moment in the consciousness of 65 per cent of the human race, and that moment meant: HOW SHALL THE HUMAN RACE BE ORGANIZED? The decision or lack of them flowing from Bandung will condition the totality of human life on this earth." What disappointed and amazed him was that the world's media--particularly from the western world--either ignored the moment altogether or saw in the Conference yet another manifestation of dangerous Communist intervention in the post-war world. (The U.S. Congressman from Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell, was even discouraged from attending on the advice of the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and the CIA Director, Allen Dulles, who were deeply suspicious of China's role at the Conference).  

     Undoubtedly, Wright was prescient in his remarks. The Bandung moment  continues to be overlooked as an important historical marker, particularly here in the Unites States. Similarly, the Bandung vision continues to pale in comparison to the vision espoused by its western equivalent, the Bretton Woods Conference of 1945, (responsible for creating institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that--for better of for worse--would be the driving force behind the rapid globalization we have witnessed in the last five decades).   

     But I sense that neither the moment nor the vision have been completely lost. I sense that the story of Bandung is waiting to be retold, even revised, to accommodate the new political realities of our post-9/11 world.  I sense that the narrative of the Bandung Conference is as urgent to us now as it was to Richard Wright fifty years ago.