THE RISE OF ASIA 70 YEARS AFTER BANDUNG:
What possibilities to build the world anew?

INTERNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE
Paris, March 5, 2025
Le Havre, March 6-7, 2025
https://bandungspirit.org/

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AND FOR PARTICIPATION

The conference is open to individual and group paper presentations. Those willing to present their papers are invited to submit their abstracts until November 30, 2024. The notification of selected abstracts will be communicated to their authors progressively according to their availability from September 2024. The earlier the abstracts are submitted, the sooner the authors will get notified. Abstracts of approximately 200-300 words (excluding figures, tables, and references) and basic personal data of the authors are to be submitted online at: https://forms.gle/zmWFCzk2P1unChV96

OFFLINE AND ONLINE PARTICIPATION
The conference will be organised offline (physically) with possible online (virtual) participation following the circumstances. The programme will be based on offline (physical) participants on Paris time zone.

INTRODUCTION

“Our task is not to defend this world, but to build the world anew.” (Sukarno, To Build the World Anew, speech at the UN General Assembly, September 30, 1960, available at https://bandungspirit.org/IMG/pdf/soekarno-to_build_the_world_anew-un-general-assembly-1960.pdf ).

There is no question that Asia has been rising. The question is, what impact does it have on the world? Or, to be more positive-progressive-prospective, what “desirable impacts” should it have on the world?

One way to answer the question may be to look back at the Bandung Conference, which represented the common and shared dreams of Asian and African peoples, as formulated formally in the Final Communiqué of the Bandung Conference and informally in the expression “Bandung Spirit”.

The most outstanding spokesperson for Bandung was President Sukarno of Indonesia. He dedicated the last fifteen years of his life to Bandung Spirit, from its inauguration under his leadership in 1955 until the end of his life in 1970. His speeches consistently reflected the dreams, ideas, vision and spirit of Bandung. One of them is “To Build the World Anew”, pronounced at the UN General Assembly on September 30, 1960, the text adopted by UNESCO in 2023 as Memory of the World.

The speech reflected the international context at that time. It was the era of what Sukarno called “the building of nations and the breaking of empires.” Imperialism was dying but not yet dead, which was very dangerous according to him: “as dangerous as the wounded tiger in a tropical jungle”. Asian countries have re-conquered progressively their political independence from Western control but were still suffering from the impacts of colonialism, WWII and the attempts of Western imperialism to maintain its control over them by provoking or manipulating national instability, proxy wars, separatist rebels, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, hunger, deceases… African countries started gaining political independence but were still largely under colonial occupation. Reciprocal provocations of the two superpowers heated the Cold War. They were ready to use their nuclear weapons and drag the world into WWIII. The Four Great Powers (USA, USSR, UK and France) were supposed to meet in Paris in May 1960 but failed. In this context, the world’s leaders came together at the UN General Assembly in New York in September 1960. Acting on behalf of the Non-Aligned Nations, the leaders of Ghana (Nkrumah), India (Nehru), Indonesia (Sukarno), United Arab Republic (Nasser) and Yugoslavia (Tito) decided to sponsor a resolution urging the US and the USSR to resume the contacts broken off in May. Sukarno was chosen as a spokesman for this group to deliver their message.

The fundamental message from Sukarno was that “We do not seek to defend the world we know: we seek to build a new, a better world! We seek to build a world sane and secure. We seek to build a world in which all may live in peace. We seek to build a world of justice and prosperity for all men. We seek to build a world in which humanity can achieve its full stature.”

He proposed key issues to be settled, including UN Reform, Colonialism, Imperialism, Decolonisation, War, Peace, Security, and Disarmament… Those issues have not been fully settled to the present day.

So, with the rise of Asia 70 years after Bandung, what are the possibilities to build the world anew? Change the world order? Global rebalancing? Global restructuring? In what way? With industrialisation? Infrastructure? Digitalisation? Development and extension of AI? Renewable energy? Green cities? Sustainable consumption? Global connectivity? Interregional cooperation with AES, ASEAN, AU, BRICS, CEEC, CELAC, EAC, NAM, SAARC, SCO, SADC…? How about the living conditions of peoples, of grass-root communities, of indigenous, ethnic and religious minorities, especially children and women? How about informalities: informal sectors, informal trade, informal business, informal housing, and informal towns? What role do they play in this global dynamics?

It is to discuss those such questions that the 9th edition of the Rise of Asia Conference Series is organised. It encourages the participation of scholars from a wide range of scientific disciplines (area studies, cultural studies, ecology, economics, geography, built environment, architecture, urban studies, history, humanities, languages, management, political and social sciences, international relations…) and practitioners from diverse professional fields (business, civil society, education, enterprise, government, management, parliament, public policy, social and solidarity movements…) as well as artists and writers, based in diverse geographical areas (Africa, North, Central and South America, Australia, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Oceania, Pacific…).

FINANCING
The organising committee does not provide a travel grant to any participant even in the case of the physical conference. The presenters and participants are supposed to find the necessary funds for their own participation (visa, international and national transport, accommodation).