History will record two Bandung conferences. The one
recently concluded, marking the golden jubilee of the first, and
the one held in April 1955 at which 29 African and Asian nations
met in Bandung, Indonesia to promote economic and cultural cooperation
and to oppose colonialism.
The idea of the Bandung Conference
came from Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia. It was conceived in Colombo,
Indonesia,
where the Colombo
powers – India, Pakistan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar)
and Indonesia, the host country – met in April 1954. The Bandung
Conference led to the 1961 creation of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The first head of state to arrive at the 2005 conference was South
African President Thabo Mbeki. Ironically, South Africa along with
Israel, Taiwan and North and South Korea were all barred from the
1955 conference. In light of recent tragic events, Mbeki visited
the tsunami stricken province of Aceh before he proceeded to the
conference.
I first heard about the Bandung Conference
in the mid-1960s while listening to a speech by El-Hajj Malik
Shabazz (Malcolm X) titled "Message
to the Grassroots,” which was first delivered at the King Solomon
Baptist Church in Detroit on November 10, 1963. Malcolm talked
about places and faces I had never heard of, however, he didn't
get it completely correct. There were White people at the Bandung
conference. Marshal Tito represented Yugoslavia, and there were
American, Australian and numerous members of the European press
at the conference. In fact, African American journalist Ethel Payne,
who was at Bandung, pointed out, “The British had sent just hordes
of correspondents, and the Dutch and the Germans and all the Europeans
countries."
Africans in North America paid close attention to this historic
event. In Canada, Daniel Braithwaite's organization, which had
a relationship with the U.S.-based Council on African Affairs (CAA),
sent a message of support. Braithwaite was so impressed by CAA
co-founder Paul Robeson that he not only started a CAA chapter
in Toronto, he named his son Paul in tribute to Robeson. Other
Africanists like W.E.B. DuBois, Alphaeus and Dorothy Hunton, along
with Robeson, were members of the Council on African Affairs.
At the time of the first Bandung Conference,
the North American left, in general, and the African American
liberation movement
in particular were under attack. Senator Joseph McCarthy was looking
for a "red under every bed.” Robeson, "the Tallest Tree
in the Forest," wanted to attend the conference but couldn't
because the U.S. government had taken his passport. Ditto for DuBois.
However, several African American politicians and journalists found
themselves in Indonesia from April 18-25, 1955. Adam Clayton Powell
Jr., Carl T. Rowan, Dr. Marguerite Cartwright, journalist Payne
and Richard Wright all were there.
Powell, the Congressman from Harlem, went to
the Conference on a dare. He wanted to attend the event to represent
the interest
of U.S. imperialism by talking about the progress the Negro in
America was making. "It will mark the first time in history
that the world's non-White people have held such a gathering," he
told reporters in Washington, D.C., "and it could be the most
important of this century." Powell, no matter what we think
of him, knew what time it was. His appeals to President Dwight
D. Eisenhower and others in the State Department fell on deaf ears.
The flamboyant Powell was told the U.S. government saw no need
to send an official observer to Bandung. However, he got there
compliments of the African American weekly newspaper, New York
Age-Defender.
Karl Evanzz pointed out in his brilliant book, The Judas Factor, "There
was at least one unofficial observer: at the request of John Foster
Dulles' brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, a young African American
journalist named Carl T. Rowan covered the conference."
Rowan went on to become the Director of the
United States Information Agency. He also went on to alienate
a generation of African Americans
after the February 21, 1965 assassination of Malcolm X. Rowan's
statement after Malcolm's death was: "All this about an ex-convict,
ex-dope peddler who became a racial fanatic."
Of the two female African American journalists at the conference,
the well-connected Dr. Cartwright represented a chain of White
dailies and the United Nations. The lesser-known Payne was the
new kid on the block and represented the Chicago Defender,
which was part of John Sengstacke's chain of Black weeklies.
Payne, who went on to be crowned "The First Lady of the Black
Press", said she had little or no contact in Indonesia with
Dr. Cartwright. Of Cartwright, Payne said, "She had a desk
at the U.N. and so she had quite a lot of access that I didn't
have." However, Payne did network with writer Richard Wright,
a one-time member of the Communist Party U.S.A. who went on his
own and wrote the book, Color Curtain, about The Bandung
Conference. Color Curtain was first published by University
Press of Mississippi in 1956. Wright wrote about the faces and
places in Indonesia in 1955, and one can feel him learning about
what would come to be called "The Third World.”
The first Bandung Conference was attended by 21 Asian, seven African
and one Eastern European country. The second was attended by 54
Asian and 52 African nations. The Asian-African Conference has
been transformed into the Asia-Africa Summit. A recent re-reading
of Robeson's Here I Stand made me realize how important
these two conferences are to humanity. At both, questions of world
peace, South-South cooperation, nuclear weapons and Palestine were
discussed.
Toronto-based journalist and radio producer Norman (Otis)
Richmond can be heard on Diasporic Music, Thursdays, 8 p.m.-10
p.m., Saturday Morning Live, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-1 p. m. and From
a Different Perspective, Sundays, 6-6:30 p.m. on CKLN-FM 88.1
and on the internet at www.ckln.fm.
He can be reached by e-mail [email protected].
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