Inside Bandung, where Indonesia’s Africa story began

BANDUNG, Indonesia, Sep 24 — The chairs are still there. More than seven decades after Asian and African leaders gathered in Bandung to challenge colonialism and demand a greater voice for newly independent nations, visitors can still sit where delegates sat in 1955. So do photographs, furniture and some of the equipment used by hundreds of journalists who travelled to the Indonesian city to report on a conference that would help shape the diplomacy of the developing world.

But the most striking thing about the Museum of the Asian-African Conference is not simply that it preserves the past. It is that Indonesia is actively using that legacy to forge a new generation of ties with Africa today. Inside the museum, the story of the 1955 Asian-African Conference is presented not as a closed chapter of Cold War history, but as the beginning of a relationship that Indonesian officials say can still underpin cooperation between Asia and Africa.

For Kenyan journalists visiting the museum during a familiarisation trip to Indonesia, the experience offered a physical connection to an event whose language of sovereignty, equality, peace and cooperation continues to feature in debates about the international order. Hilda Kurnia, Acting Director of the Museum of the Asian-African Conference, said the institution was established in 1980 to preserve the memory of the gathering and its significance for relations between Asia and Africa. But she also sees the museum as a bridge between people.

“Bandung became the home for the African people for solidarity,” Kurnia said. The message is that the relationship created in Bandung should not remain confined to history books, diplomatic ceremonies or museum displays. “People-to-people exchange will bring more knowledge and increase the relationship with the countries,” she said.

Where Asia and Africa met To understand the significance of the museum, visitors first have to understand the building itself. In April 1955, representatives of twenty-nine Asian and African countries gathered in Bandung at a time when much of Asia and Africa was emerging from colonial rule. Spearheaded by Indonesian President Sukarno alongside key figures of the era including India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, China’s Zhou Enlai and Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, the conference brought together nations with different political systems and national int…