Lecture notes: Bandung, 1955

The Lives of Others

“The Lives of Others” (Das Leben der Anderen) is a German film released in 2006, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film is set in East Berlin in 1984, during the oppressive surveillance regime of the East German Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the Stasi.

The plot centers around a Stasi officer, Captain Gerd Wiesler, who is assigned to conduct surveillance on a playwright named Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland, who are suspected of disloyalty to the state. Wiesler sets up listening devices in Dreyman’s apartment and begins monitoring their activities. However, as he becomes increasingly absorbed in their lives and discovers the pressures and betrayals they face, his belief in the government’s cause begins to waver.

The film explores themes of art, love, and betrayal, and provides a compelling examination of the moral choices faced by individuals under a repressive regime. Wiesler’s transformation from a loyal Stasi officer to someone who secretly aids Dreyman reflects the broader human capacity for change and redemption. “The Lives of Others” won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007 and has been highly praised for its powerful storytelling and deep emotional impact.

Ceasefire deal in Gaza?

Mass graves and hunger

• faint glint of progress

Talks in Cairo

• talking back documents to their leaders

Talks between the parties

• intermediaries — US, Qatar
• contacts can take days
• discussions have gone on for days

What are the terms?

• Hamas: release 3 women hostages every 3 days, then wounded, sick and elderly men
• they want to make sure the Israelis stick to their side of the bargain
• Israel: permanent ceasefire and draw back of troops
• release 40 female prisoners for every Israeli woman
• 20 male prisoners for every Israeli man

The extent to which Israelis would maintain a presence

• whether Gazans can move back to the north
• return to before Oct 7, but nothing is left to go back to

Israel:

• saving hostages
• destroying Hamas

Attack on Rafah

• four Hamas battalions left

Originally over 200 hostages

• maybe half are alive
• unclear who holds whom

Why has an agreement been so hard to reach?

• Hamas wanted to ignite a regional war
• destroy Hamas — Netanyahu’s personal ambitions

New situation

• no regional war
• Hamas doesn’t want an attack on Rafah
• Israel: more people want the hostages back
• heavy pressure from the US

ICC

• issue arrest warrants for the political leaders — Israel and Hamas
• the US and Israel are not members — but Palestine is
• the US tries to stop it

Attack on Rafah

Last civilian enclave — 1 million people

• what is the importance of this invasion for the negotiations?
• Netanyahu invades even if there is a ceasefire
• strange mixed message — only temporary ceasefire

What happens if there is no deal?

• Rafah plan would continue
• Israeli military have doubts — might be a trap

Humanitarian aid

• floating pier — US aid
• uptick in food deliveries — 300 trucks a day

The post-war setting

Discussions about independence

• Western skepticism
• English School fears
• Pan-Africanism
• Pan-Arabism

How independence happened

• Westernized elites promised that everything would be OK as long as they took over
• the West believed them
• “people like us”
• besides the new countries shouldn’t be too strong — we need to be able to protect our investments

The Bandung Conference, 1955

“Asian-African Conference” – the “A-A Conference” –

• Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, from April 18 to 24, 1955

Indonesia’s president Sukarno and India’s prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru were the main organizers

• Chou Enlai, the foreign minister of China, where the Communists had come to power six years earlier

Gamal Abdel Nasser

• the Egyptian colonel who, once the conference was over, would go on to nationalize the Suez Canal
• defend his country against a combined Israeli, British and French invasion

Together they represented a majority of the world’s population

The “Merdeka Walk”

Walk from their respective hotels some hundred meters away to the Gedung Merdeka, the “Independence House,” the main conference venue

• colorful native costumes and they were waving to the cheering crowds
• the mood was festive, but at the same time proud and defiant

Richard Wright, Black American author:

• “It was the first time in their downtrodden lives that they’d seen so many men of their color, race, and nationality arrayed in such aspects of power, … their Asia and their Africa in control of their destinies”

The world was watching …

• and now they were on the move

Eloquent speeches:

• past humiliations – and condemnations of colonialism and racism
• the unity they shared and a determination to face future challenges together

Agenda for action:

• economic and cultural cooperation
• the need to stabilize commodity prices
• non-alignment
• disarmament and an end to nuclear weapons
• the importance of self-determination, anti-racism and anti-colonialism

Western reactions

The former colonial powers were apprehensive

• knew they would be accused of all sorts of crimes

Still plenty of European colonies in the world without plans to grant them independence

• some with large populations of European settlers – Algeria, Kenya and South Africa

Westerners had just imposed a new regime – Israel — on lands which rightfully belonged to the Palestinians

The United States was officially supportive:

• a former colony itself, the US had always been in favor of decolonization
• provide US corporations with full access to parts of the world previously dominated by Europeans

But US too was apprehensive:

• worried that the conference would provide a platform where Communist could make their rebel-rousing speeches
• help China break out of its diplomatic isolation

As it turned out, the proceedings were quite civil and not nearly as anti-Western as Westerners had feared

• American diplomats worked hard to convince friendly countries — Iraq, Turkey, Japan, Ceylon and the Philippines, in particular – to represent them
• Communist countries can be imperialist too – just look at Soviet imperialism in Eastern Europe!

Chou Enlai:

• turned out to be a very suave statesman and not the fiery revolutionary the Americans had expected
• China and the United States should enter into direct negotiations in order to reduce the tension in East Asia — Americans were suspicious

Non-Aligned Movement, 1961

Formally established at a meeting in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in September 1961

• to be non-aligned was to refuse to align oneself with either of the two sides in the Cold War

Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno and many of the other leaders from Bandung were present in Belgrade too

Yugoslavia’s president Josip Broz Tito

• and the representatives of many more, now independent, African countries

The criteria for membership were not obvious

• there were neutral countries which were not members
• members, such as Cuba, which clearly were very close to the Soviet Union

The meeting in Belgrade attracted wide attention

• some 800 journalists from around the world
• Washington and Moscow paying close attention

It was the symbolism of the event that mattered and the fact that it was taking place at all

• “There are other people in the world than you allies of the superpowers”
• “There is us, a majority of the world’s population”
• “You have mismanaged our common heritage and pushed the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation”
• “We no longer trust you to be in charge of world affairs”

The declaration which they agreed on at the end of the conference demanded disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons

• all conflicts should be settled by means of negotiations
• spend money on development, not weapons
• need for decolonization
• only if countries can determine their own fate can conflicts be avoided
• solidarity — mutual cooperation also among sovereign states
• security is a collective concept — we are all secure or none of us is
• if a majority of the world’s population is given the power to decide, there will be no more racism, poverty or oppression

The United Nations

Founded in 1945

• originally intended by the Americans as a way for them to govern the world

By the 1960s a majority of the members were non-Western and non-aligned

• although real power at the UN rested with the Security Council
• and here the former colonies had no permanent seat –

The General Assembly provided a more amenable forum

• the non-Western and non-aligned countries would often coordinate their positions and pool their votes
• better represent the majority of people of the world
• embrace a far more radical agenda

Decolonization

• In 1956, a coalition of Asian and African states appealed to the UN to react to the deteriorating situation in Algeria

December 1960, the General Assembly adopted by a “Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.”

• colonialism in all its forms and manifestations must be brought to “a speedy and unconditional end”
• all people everywhere must have the opportunity to determine their own destiny and form of government

Resolution 3379

Identified Zionism as “a form of racism and racial discrimination” and compared Israel to the apartheid regime in South Africa

• Jewish form form of nationalism no different than the nationalisms of other countries

Always vetoed by the US

• but showed how radicalized the UN had become

The problem was not the Western model of the world, but that the West had failed to honor it

• they demanded an end to Western hypocrisy

The international system can be changed

• solidarity allows us to re-imagine the world
• it is not that another world is possible, but that the world we have can be made to work in different ways
• as long as they stayed united, former colonies and non-aligned countries would be a force to reckon with

Pan-africanism

Pan-arabism

Pan-Arabism is a political and cultural ideology that advocates for the cultural and political unity of Arab countries and peoples. Its origins can be traced back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Arab nationalism. The ideology gained significant traction in the mid-20th century, particularly under the leadership of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The core idea of Pan-Arabism is that all Arabs—regardless of their national boundaries—share a common linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage that should serve as the basis for political cooperation and unity. The ultimate goal for many proponents of Pan-Arabism has been the formation of a single Arab nation encompassing all Arab-speaking countries.

Key events and movements in the history of Pan-Arabism include the formation of the Arab League in 1945, which aimed at coordinating political efforts among Arab states, and the United Arab Republic, a short-lived political union between Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961 that represented an actual political attempt at Arab unity. Despite these efforts, political differences, regional conflicts, and divergent national interests have often hampered the realization of a fully unified Arab state. Nonetheless, the ideology of Pan-Arabism continues to influence political and cultural discourse in the Arab world.

The “Third World”

According to this terminology

• the West constituted the “first world,”
• the Communist countries the “second world”
• and all other countries the “third world”

The French writer who proposed it saw a connection to “the Third Estate” in the French revolution

• the revolutionary class

Real change does not happen as a result of international diplomacy

• the peoples of the Third World rise up together the world will be transformed

Marxism was an attractive ideology for many people in the Third World

• capitalism was premised on exploitation of the workers and the result was a society where a few were rich and the many were poor
• economic activities happened not randomly, but according to a plan
• the state was in charge and the wealth of society was distributed so as to benefit everybody

Third World leaders

• use limited resources more wisely
• US: give more power to themselves

New class struggle:

• not between capitalists and workers
• but between the poor and the rich peoples of the world

Mao’s redefinition:

• the First World was made up of the United States and the Soviet Union
• while the Third World were all poor countries
• the Second world was then the more or less developed countries in between

For a while in the 1960s and 70s revolutions seemed to be brewing in every Third World country

• guerrillas were fighting in the jungles throughout Latin America and in much of Southeast Asia, and one African country after another turned to socialism
• in some countries, such as Cuba and Vietnam, the revolutionaries had already come to power, and leaders like Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro became icons of the world-wide struggle

“Tricontinental Conference.” Cuba, January, 1966

• some 500 revolutionaries here, from some 82 different countries
• the delegates were not statesmen as much as military commanders
• Bandung on revolutionary steroids

The US condemned

• US representative: “the terroristic and warlike nature of the conference” and the way in which “propaganda high-jinks were employed to whip up the fires of belligerency and fanaticism.”

For many young people in the West, it was time to take sides

• Weather Underground etc

NIEO

“New international economic order”

• the international trading system was unfair

Price stability

• prices for minerals and agricultural products fluctuated wildly
• difficult for governments to plan
• loans taken up in times of plenty could not be repaid in times of dearth

Free trade — “hypocritical”

• poor countries should open up their markets to international competition, but at the same time they often closed their own markets when poor countries demanded access
• Western governments protected their farmers

Some economists, free trade was exactly the problem

• “the terms of trade”
• the amount of imported goods which a country can purchase by means of its exports
• terms of trade are declining – if you can buy less and less from abroad – you will steadily become poorer

Raúl Prebisch among others

• economic development will make service sectors increasingly more important and raw material relatively less important
• a developed economy is a high-tech economy, but we still only eat three meals a day and wear one shirt at a time

Import substitution

• a country can break with this pattern of under-development by limiting international trade
• it can substitute its imports for home-made products
• by protecting its own producers it can develop a domestic industrial base

Cf. aspirations to self-reliance

• wanted to rule themselves, without foreign interference, and to be dependent on the world market was to be dependent on foreigners
• more power to the state — and to the new generation of nationalist leaders

UNCTAD

In 1964, Prebisch moved on to become head of UNCTAD, the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development

• UNCTAD was going to change the rules of world trade, assure fairness and economic development

Cf. the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

• instruments of the West
• both based in Washington DC

Ownership of natural resources

• nationalizations
• OPEC — use as a political weapon
• more resources in the hands of local elites

The new Realpolitik

Behind the rhetoric, an unconditional commitment to the rules of the Western-run international system

• Asians and Africans all stressed the importance of “sovereignty,” “self-determination,” “non-interference,” “territorial integrity,” and so on
• they have continued to invoke the same language at every opportunity ever since
• the vocabulary of self-determination provided them with just the arguments they needed in order to defend themselves

In April 2005, Asian and African countries reassembled in Bandung

• to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the original meeting
• they were making wars on each other
• dogs had begun eating dogs
• great differences between the various countries

The UN

• never managed to transform the world
• the West just moved away from it — and took their power with them

Import substitution was a failure

• East Asian “tigers” showed that the opposite strategy worked better

NIEO

• never happened
• Reagan killed it off in Cancun, 1984

Nationalization of resources

• made the situation worse
• the resource curse

“Washington Consensus”

• neo-liberal principles
• selling of state-owned companies
• reducing subsidies
• firing state employees

“Third World”

• no one talks about it anymore

“World revolution”

• ha, ha, no

Realpolitik won the day

• for decades the West had tried to impose their model of the world on everyone else
• but it really only succeeded once everyone else started imposing it on themselves