Page 150 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

decolonization 499

Unity across the Developing World

At the close of the Bandung Conference in April 1955, That is why we raise our voice against domination
India’s Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, summa- and colonialism from which many of us have suf-
rized the sense of unity and growing influence felt by fered so long and that is why we have to be very
delegates from non-aligned nations. Many of these careful to see that any other form of domination
nations were former European colonies now seeking to does not come our way. Therefore, we want to be
establish political stability and economic growth. friends with the West and friends with the East and
friends with everybody because if there is something
But, there is yet another spirit of Asia today.As we all
that may be called an approach to the minds and
know,Asia is no longer passive today; it has been pas-
spirit of Asia, it is one of toleration and friendship
sive enough in the past. It is no more a submissive
and cooperation, not one of aggressiveness.
Asia; it has tolerated submissiveness for so long.Asia
I realise, as the Prime Minister of Burma said, that
of today is dynamic; Asia is full of life . . .We are great
we cannot exercise tremendous influence over the
countries in the world who rather like having free-
world. Our influence will grow, no doubt...But
dom, if I may say so, without dictation.Well, if there
whether our influence is great or small, it must be
is anything that Asia wants to tell them it is this: No
exercised in the right direction, in an intelligent
dictation there is going to be in the future; no ‘yes-
direction, in a direction which has integrity of pur-
men’ in Asia, I hope, or in Africa. We have had
pose and ideals and objectives as shown in our Res-
enough of that in the past. We value friendship of
olution. It represents the ideals of Asia, it represents
the great countries and if I am to play my part, I
the new dynamism of Asia, because if it does not
should like to say that we sit with the great countries
represent that what are we then? Are we copies of
of the world as brothers, be it in Europe or America.
Europeans or Americans or Russians? What are we?
It is not in any spirit of hatred or dislike or aggres-
We are Asians or Africans. We are none else. If we
siveness with each other in regard to Europe or
are camp followers of Russia or America or any
America, certainly not. We send to them our greet-
other country of Europe, it is, if I may say so, not
ings, all of us here, and we want to be friends with
very creditable to our dignity, our new indepen-
them, to cooperate with them. But we shall only
dence, our new freedom, our new spirit and our
cooperate in the future as equals; there is no friend-
new self-reliance.
ship when nations are not equal, when one has to
Source: Kahin, G. M. (1955). The Asian-African Conference, Bandung, Indonesia, April,
obey the other and when one dominates the other. 1955 (pp. 73–75). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
of their own citizens. Fourth, this global regime assumed zenship in the lands that they settled. Finally, undergird-
a division of labor in which imperial states made manu- ing the whole was the pervasive notion of a cultural hier-
factured goods, or supplied capital, while colonies and archy (often expressed in terms of “race”).Those cultures
semicolonies produced the raw or semifinished com- not rooted in northwest Europe might be sighed over for
modities with which they were exchanged. Enforced free their beauty, admired for their subtlety, or envied for their
trade, like that imposed on China by treaty, was the spiritualism. But they lacked what the late Victorians
means to achieve this beyond the frontiers of imperial called “social efficiency”: the capacity for the “moral and
rule. Fifth, there was a demographic face to this global material progress” on which the British rulers of India
system. It was the mass emigration of Europeans to sent an annual report to the parliament in London.
places of permanent settlement or (where their numbers This broader and more realistic definition may allow
were less) social mastery in the extra-European world; us to think more precisely about the causes of the change
and a much-smaller-scale migration of Afro-Asian labor that decolonization brought. It has become fashionable
as transients with few rights and little prospect of citi- recently to claim that empire has revived—or perhaps