Yesterday, I visited the Asian African Bandung Conference Museum in Bandung. It was an educational experience of the first awakening of humanity at a global level 70 years ago.
The Bandung Conference which was jointly organised by Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Burma, was attended by leaders of 29 countries.
At the museum, I met a delegation from Asian African Youth Government — a pioneer of Afro-Asian and ASEAN NGOs who must lead the world in developing global civilizational movements started at Bandung.
The Afro-Asian Bandung Conference produced Ten Principles of Bandung ushering a globalisation movement, which included the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement six years later in Belgrade.
The 70th Anniversary of the 1955 Bandung Conference is more significant than ever, for at stake is whether the Spirit of Bandung can survive the anti-globalisation campaign of the second American presidency of Donald Trump.
What is obvious is that President Donald Trump has violated all the Ten Principles of Bandung and wants the world to degenerate to a “Pax Americana”.
I remember that when I was a reporter in the early sixties, I was for a period assigned to the Coroner’s Court. I had a long argument about the inevitability of the world going communist, but the despite the seeming invincibility of the world going communist, we want the freedom to have a choice.
What is obvious is that Trump has violated all the Ten Principles of Bandung and wants the world to degenerate to a “Pax Americana”.
But just as Francis Fukuyama was proved to be wrong with his “The End of History” and Samuel Huntington wrong with “The Clash of Civilisations”, Trump may prove to be wrong in his spanner wrench to unscrew the globalisation nuts.
Just as the world does not want to take sides in the East-West conflict, the world does not want to choose between China and the United States in the Trump tariffs battle.
Yesterday, I was very impressed with the cultural performance put up by the Sundanese art group, Saung Angklung Udjo attempting to manifest beautiful harmony of vibrating bamboos to spread the values of simplicity, co-operation, unity, and togetherness, as well as maintaining the mutual relationship between humans and the environment.
UNESCO inscribed Angklung in the Intangible Cultural Heritage List in November 2010.
Udjo’s House of Angklung adopts the philosophy of easy, affordable, educative, attractive, massive, and cheerful performances that are the essence of their ultimate show called “Kaulinan Urang Lembur” or villagers’ playtime.
Especially evocative is the message that humanity has a universal language with the basics of music.
In the Afro-Asian Conference, mankind made a move towards globalisation. Do we want to turn the clock back?
In ASEAN, there is also “Unity in diversity”. ASEAN should contribute to this global civilization process, of dialogue and harmony and to save mankind from a war between US and China and a World War III.
(Statement by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang in Bandung, Indonesia on Sunday, 20th April 2025)