The Bandung Conference opened 50 years ago this month. Anouar Abdel-Malek ponders its significance for the 21st century Who among the participants at the Bandung conference in 1955 could have imagined that it would remain a symbol in the hearts and minds of Egyptians, and the rest of the peoples of the East and the South, a half century later? And is this fact no more than nostalgia or is it a pointer to what the future holds? In short, why reminisce over Bandung? The world of 1955 is far removed from the world we inhabit today. In those days the world was caught between two antipodes: one, the US- Soviet bipolar system, emerged following the Allied victory in 1945 while the other, the seemingly boundless resurgence taking place in the vast civilizational East, manifested itself in the tide of national liberation movements and wars that erupted across Asia, the Arab world and Africa as hitherto marginalised peoples and nations asserted their rights. It was against this backdrop that the peoples of the East issued a call to inaugurate a new phase in world history, in response to which leaders of these peoples held the conference promoting solidarity between Asia and Africa which convened in Bandung, Indonesia on 15 April 1955. During that historic meeting the leaders of the emerging East -- Chou En-lai, Sukarno, Nehru, Abdel-Nasser and Yunu -- declared five principles calling for freedom for all peoples, equality among nations, and peaceful and just coexistence and cooperation between nations. The world today faces challenges from many directions. As we seem to be increasingly enveloped in bleakness, it is only natural that we should wonder how long the experience will continue, for how long, and in what places, can this bleakness spin out. Is it the fate of peoples, societies and nations to be shrouded in such black despair? Or is this a feeling particular to us, the inhabitants of a civilizational sphere beset by wars waged against it by outside powers? Certainly the Middle Eastern, or Islamic civilizational circle, which extends from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa to Central and Southeastern Asia, stands on the firing line, although a similar, concerted attempt is being made to check the peaceful rise of China, the largest nation of the world and the centre of the eastern Asia Confucian civilizational circle, home to 40 per cent of the world's population. The world continues beyond the Arab- Iranian axis of contemporary Islamic civilization. Something, for example, is astir in Latin America which gives an unanticipated scope for hope even as the Middle East continues to blindly grope its way towards partnership with Asia. There is, then, some cause for optimism as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bandung, and one key to this optimism resides in the waning of the moral influence of the world's dominant power whatever its uncontested military and technological superiority. The first fissure opened along its axis with its closest allies in Europe. The Europeans openly began to express their exasperation at American aggressiveness. Most European countries are currently questioning the viability of American hegemony -- at the political level -- in light of challenges to the centrality of the West posed by the rise of new powers -- China, Russia, India, Japan and Brazil. Other manifestations of the erosion of the moral and political weight of the US are to be found in Latin America. Most Latin American countries have elected nationalist, independent-minded leaderships and governments vehemently opposed to American heavy- handedness. Their determination to scorn the dictates of the IMF and the World Bank and pursue their own strategies for economic and human development is a manifestation of a powerful wave of national self-assertion. It is an expression of their resolve to break the cycle of dependency and mobilise the enormous energies of Latin America to enable it to stake its place in a multi- polar world that is no longer so distant a dream as it until recently appeared. The most important area to examine, however, is Asia. The particular significance of the Asian thrust at the beginning of the 21st century resides in a resurgence in which all the energies, resources, population, power and strategic and technical might of that far-flung continent are being pooled into a cohesive whole which, in turn, derives inspiration and impetus from the values and teachings of the great Oriental cultures and civilizations. This vast movement is taking place in a world that is still, though to a lesser extent than at the time of Bandung, subject to Western dominance, and American hegemony in particular. If the anticipated renaissance is to be realised peacefully it must deal realistically and intelligently with the reality of this hegemony. This entails avoiding, or at least deferring, any direct confrontation while simultaneously focusing on expanding the scope of economic and trade cooperation. In Asia opinion polls reflect overwhelming popular opposition to America's bellicose philosophy, even if the leaderships of a minority of countries - Japan, Thailand and the Philippines - continue to toe the line dictated by the leader of the monopolar order. The mood in Africa, too, it should be added, is much the same as that prevailing in the rest of the South though Africa itself floundering, torn by deeply rooted tribal and ethnic conflicts. The framework within which the world is presently moving is generally defined by the acknowledgement of the political and strategic dominance of the American hegemonic pole combined with a broadening of the scope for opposition to the objectives of American strategy. What we must rule out entirely, however, is the notion that this situation can last beyond the mid-term. The likely direction of future relations between China and Europe sheds an unexpected source of light. President Bush's recent tour of Europe was successful in rallying a large number of western European countries back behind accepting Washington's overall strategic orientation or, if not accepting it at least softening the opposition that prevailed at the time of Washington's aggression against Iraq. At the same time, however, the major European powers, led by France and Germany as well as the UK on this occasion, felt it was time to lift the ban on arms sales to China, in effect since 1989. The US Congress flew into a rage and voted almost unanimously to condemn the European decision. Republicans and Democrats had not failed to show such consensus even on the bill to go to war against Iraq. With that vote the US declared its primary foreign policy objective for the beginning of the 21st century - to thwart any possibility of China's rise as a major alternative pole in a multipolar world. That resolve, in turn, meant that America had to extend its control over the Middle East and Central Asia, upon which China depends for its energy supplies, and obstruct the transfer of advanced arms technology to China. Putting into effect this strategic stranglehold became the most important of Washington's tactical objectives. American military superiority is unquestioned. Attention has therefore focused on its possession of softer coercive power. It is useful, in this regard, to consider the opinions of American experts on the declining moral weight of the superpower for they suggest a recognition of the need to build bridges, or at least raise the level of rationality in dealing with the cultural and political centres of diverse world. This trend is best epitomised by Roger Cohen, self-styled "globalist" and author of the Herald Tribune column of that name. Cohen asks why gratitude towards the US had turned into resentment. How did it come about that a significant sector of the population in South Korea, for example, feels as former Prime Minister Lee Hong Koo put it: "What the younger generation resents is that while Korea has grown more than a hundred-fold, American attitudes toward us have not changed accordingly. What we want now is to be full partners." Cohen goes on to cite German opposition to the war against Iraq and the Latin American awakening as further indicative of a sharp shift in world perceptions away from "America-the- liberator" and towards "America-the- imperialist". He then adds, with revealing candour that "the struggle to defeat the Soviet Union is part of a heroic American narrative". "But in the Middle East, as in Asia and Latin America, that victory involved acts of hypocrisy, ruthlessness or worse that are more alive in the minds of many people than the heroism. Those people form the generation in power." ( Herald Tribune, 26 March 2005) To Cohen, and to others in the US, the problem boils down to the ascendance of new generations, as though this takes place in some sort of a vacuum with no connection to time, locality of culture. It would be far more useful, though, to return to roots, to the pillars on which the survival of human societies rest, especially in times of profound change. These pillars are three. The first and most important is the nation, that social polity that perpetuates itself across history. The nation is the rock that no enemy or intruder can shatter, however painful the encroachments. Faith in the nation, as manifested in the drive of all citizens to protect it, safeguard its uniqueness and enhance the quality of its performance within the framework of a national front, is the modern version of the "solid bond". In Egypt we have a long-ingrained sense of this powerful adhesive, even if this awareness occasionally lapses in the consciousness of some. The participants at Bandung were not representatives of transient social groupings. They came from the heart of the most ancient nations in the world, nations that stand at the centre of their cultural and civilizational circles. The first pillar, thus, was abundantly present at Bandung, which is why the conference remains a significant event in spite of how much the world has changed. The second pillar concerns the means to shape global balances. A nation must accord the highest level of attention to entering into partnership with forces that are equally committed to the principles of sovereignty, independence of will, the perpetuity of their individuality and the enhancement of their performance. In other words, our potential partners must have the same depth of drive and resolve, which means that they too must be nations in the fullest sense of the term. As long as our nation enters into friendships with others, we must ensure that these friendships are reliable and durable. This means choosing friends from among nations that are solidly established, for fragile and unstable polities cannot be relied on in times of hardship. The third pillar is constant vigilance. The contradictions within the world order must be watched carefully and advantage taken of any gaps that emerge that might allow the global order to be steered in a more positive direction. By positive I mean a direction that is ultimately conducive to the realisation of the Bandung vision. The three pillars above are axiomatic. Perpetuity, with its attendant drive and creativity, cannot spring from a void -- nothing does -- and for human societies the non-void has always assumed the form of national polities. While a segment of American intellectuals and commentators are cognizant of this constitutional dynamic such awareness is rarely translated into practice in the US's dealings with the world around it. It is as though the world's sole superpower's infancy (it was born only at the end of the 18th century) prevents it from fathoming that some human societies have a history that dates back to the first sprouts of civilization. How else is it possible to explain a short-sightedness that sees no further back than a generation, as is the case in the Cohen article? Why did the "globalist", accorded a column several times a month in a major newspaper, not ponder the history of the formation of society in those two ancient nations he mentioned, Korea and Germany? If he had he would have realised that Korea and Germany possess that quality of historic depth that has enabled them to survive centuries of rise and fall and glory and defeat yet nevertheless preserve their distinctness and individuality. And herein resides the key to the rapidity with which Korea and Germany (as well as the peoples of the Middle East, Asia and Latin America) awoke from the dream of the ephemeral promise of paradise held out during that brief period in which their interests temporarily and partially coincided with those of the US. A future, then, is possible, and it is one that rests on the pillars of the UN and its friends. Together they must commit themselves to mobilising the energies of societies and nations to the level that will enable them to identify and capitalise on the breaches that will open in the international order in order to break the cycle of stagnation, encirclement and marginalisation. This process must take place within a more general civilizational framework whereby a group of nations and cultures align themselves in order to ensure the continuity of their history, beliefs and values. This is the significance Bandung holds at the beginning of the 21st century. In the 1950s it may have been possible to accept the values inherent in a western bipolar order, though the emerging nations of the East determinedly raised the banner of a set of values and principles they believed could foster a mode of coexistence between peoples and nations far saner than settling for the fragile peace of nuclear parity. Bandung's message to a world in which the vast majority of peoples and nations reject the logic of permanent pre- emptive warfare is that they can, if they want, generate moral and political alternatives rooted in their rich and vital heritages. There is nothing that compels the peoples of the world to accept the dictates of a tyrannical might. In fact, the greater the pressure exerted upon them the more they will be goaded into strengthening their resolve to form a new world with far more optimistic horizons.
