Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network / Radio ReOrient
Title: Anticolonial Legacies of Bandung, with Adnan Husain, Rabab Abdulhadi, and Salman Sayyid
Date: December 5, 2025

This episode commemorates the 70th anniversary of the 1955 Bandung Conference—a historic coalition of 29 recently decolonized Asian and African nations that forged the "Bandung Spirit" of anti-colonial solidarity, non-alignment, and resistance to imperialism, racism, and neocolonialism.
Host Adnan Husain leads a dynamic panel with Rabab Abdulhadi (SF State University) and Salman Sayyid (University of Leeds). They disentangle Bandung’s legacy, the evolution (and fragmentation) of the "Global South," the contemporary meaning of anti-colonialism, and the enduring, sometimes romantic, significance of transnational solidarity—especially as symbolized today by Palestine.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Context and Historical Weight of Bandung

• Host Adnan Husain summarizes the Bandung Conference: 29 Asian/African nations, newly independent from colonial rule, gather in 1955 to pioneer transnational solidarity against both Western (US/NATO) and Soviet imperial ambitions.
• Attendees included not only formal states but also liberation movements (ANC, FLN).
• Conference birthed the Non-Aligned Movement and set a precedent for South-South cooperation.
  "It was a very momentous occasion that gave birth to the Non Aligned Movement... worth thinking about it on the 70th anniversary." – Adnan Husain (09:50)

2. Diverse Legacies and the "Spirit of Bandung"

• Rabab Abdulhadi highlights that initial skepticism existed among oppositional movements but the conference signified hope for a path independent of Western or Soviet blocs:
  • The ‘Afro-Asia’ coalition signals both a geopolitical alliance and an ideological one—aspiring toward non-alignment, economic sovereignty, and global justice.
• Rabab notes that, drawing from Fanonian thought, true decolonization remains unfinished: "Fanon would have never called himself post colonial without the parenthesis. Because coloniality... is not a finished project." (12:55)
• Emphasizes Egyptian, Palestinian, and Arab context: Suez crisis, resistance to "dangerous alliances" like the Baghdad Pact, regional nationalist movements, and the centrality of Palestine.

3. Complexities, Contradictions, and Forgotten Solidarities

• Salman Sayyid frames Bandung as part of a broader lineage (Pan-African Congress 1900, Baku 1920). Notes the unusual, sometimes contradictory, mix of participants (e.g., Japan, the Shah of Iran) united by opposition to colonialism, even if not always consensual on methods/vision:
  • "Nearly everyone there has some experience of the colonial and they see themselves against it." (33:57)
  • The conference rejected all forms of colonialism—capitalist or socialist.
• Large swathes of Africa were absent since most were still colonized (Ghana independent only by 1960).
• Sayyid warns against romanticization: "I think it's easy for us to romanticize it and see this as an assertion of anti colonial sovereignty. Whereas... it was being animated by the anti colonial [spirit]." (36:37)

4. The Failure/Fragmentation of Bandung’s Promise

• Husain asks why the spirit of Bandung faltered, referencing factors like Third World debt, neoliberalism, and the co-option of initial anti-colonial momentum by global financial and military systems.
• Rabab and Salman argue that state-level ambitions (economic policies, alignment, the fate of Nasserism in Egypt) were quickly reabsorbed or derailed by Western capitalism and domestic elite interests.
• Notable moment: On neoliberal reforms and their impact, especially Egypt's privatizations, the reversal of Nasser-era policies, and subsequent normalization with Israel.

5. Transnational Solidarity vs. Ethno-Nationalism

• The panel differentiates anti-colonial nationalism (inclusive, liberatory, transcending ethnicity) from ethno-nationalism (divisive, restrictive).
• They caution that ethno-nationalism ultimately undermined the vision of Bandung, shifting the focus from transnational projects to narrower state interests.
  • "Maybe what killed Bandung was the growth of ethno nationalism. Because ... trying to build transnational solidarities... when your focus is only on ... ethno nationalism, solidarities become blocked." – Salman Sayyid (53:22)
• Abdulhadi: "The goal is liberation, not really a state." (55:15)
• Contemporary relevance: The Palestinian flag exceeds its own confines, standing as the preeminent sign of global anticolonial resistance (see Bangladesh student protests, 51:38).

6. Bandung’s Resonance Today – Palestinianization, Islamophobia, and the Role of People vs. Regimes

• Popular support for Palestine, despite authoritarian backlash in Arab and Muslim-majority states, is highlighted as evidence of a living Bandung spirit among people.
• Sayyid introduces dual meanings of "Palestinianization": (52:42)
  1. Techniques of control and repression (security, policing, anti-extremism) exported globally.
  2. The global symbol of steadfast resistance.
• They critique the enduring attempts to divide anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist struggles—especially through fostering sectarianism and Islamophobia.
  • "One of the strongest manifestations of Islamophobia is ethno nationalism, both epistemologically, politically, economically, culturally." – Salman Sayyid (88:26)

7. Historical Memory, Education, and the Passing On of Anticolonial Globalist Thought

• The essential role of commemorating Bandung, Fanon, Malcolm X, and similar figures, against curricular erasure and generational forgetting.
• Connection between anticolonial internationalism and current organizing.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Bandung’s Hope & Limitations:
  “It was a very momentous time… Many of them had recently emerged from colonialism… representing at the time a majority of the world’s population… It gave birth to the Non Aligned Movement and to other projects of transnational solidarity.” – Adnan Husain (09:50)

• Critical Appraisal of Anti-Colonial Nationalism:
  "The goal is liberation, not really a state. And that's a very big... In the Palestinian history... there is very few periods when the goal was state." – Rabab Abdulhadi (55:15)

• On Romanticizing Bandung:
  "It's easy for us to romanticize it and see this as an assertion of anti colonial sovereignty. Whereas I think it's probably something which is being animated by the anti colonial... investment on that front later dissipated in a way." – Salman Sayyid (36:29)

• On Transnational Popular Solidarity:
  "The spirit of Bandung... is probably to be found more among the people than in the regimes." – Salman Sayyid (48:02)

• On the Palestinian Flag as a Transnational Symbol:
  "...the Palestinian flag is now really carrying the spirit of Bandung because it is at the forefront of any anti colonial movement, you know, or struggle for justice right now as the symbol of that." – Adnan Husain (64:34)

• On Bandung as a Site of Educational and Political Contestation:
  “[Commemorating] these occasions... is for us to transmit the knowledge we have to younger generation, where it is actually being all erased from the curriculum and eliminated.” – Rabab Abdulhadi (68:20)

• On the Intertwining of Racism and Colonialism:
  “Every colonial empire was a racial state, and all racial states are basically working through colonial governmentalities... When the articulation of anti colonialism and anti racism was broken... you saw the restoration of white power.” – Salman Sayyid (71:42)

• On Islamophobia & Orientalism Today:
  "Every single Islamophobic project is always a project of ethnonationalism, whether it takes place in Turkey, or... in Austria or France or in China. It always... is trying to create... a national, ethno national version of Islam or to remove Islam." – Salman Sayyid (88:26)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:59]–[10:24]: Setting the Context: What Bandung Was and Why It Mattered
• [11:00]–[17:08]: Abdulhadi on the Conference’s Contradictions and Arab Context
• [17:08]–[22:25]: Sayyid on Bandung as a Moment of Multinational Possibility
• [22:25]–[28:50]: Neocolonialism, Suez Crisis, and the Blocking of Bandung’s Project
• [28:50]–[36:37]: The Issue of Cohesion, Political Vision, and the Absence Today
• [36:37]–[41:40]: Reappraising Sovereignty, Neoliberalism, and the Role of the State
• [48:02]–[54:37]: The People vs. Regimes: Palestinianization, Solidarity, & State Responses
• [55:15]–[60:01]: Nationalism, Statehood, and Paths Beyond the Nation-State
• [62:01]–[68:20]: Fanon, Malcolm X, and the Need to Sustain Anticolonial Memory
• [70:40]–[74:46]: Racial-Colonial Hyphen, the Dangers of Dividing Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial
• [78:18]–[90:06]: Sectarianism, Islamophobia, Orientalism—Threats to Anticolonial Vision
• [90:06+]: Reflections and Outro: Continuing the Bandung Spirit, New Historiographies

Final Reflections from Roundtable Hosts

• Chella Ward: Bandung represents a moment of “potential histories,” a fork in the world whose possibilities still animate contemporary struggles against ethno-nationalism and Islamophobia.
• Claudia Radovan, Saeed Khan: They explore the lessons of Bandung for the present—questioning whether current global alignments (e.g., BRICS) echo or break from the third-space Bandung tried to open.

Conclusion

The panel delivers a textured, critical historical conversation, both skeptical of nostalgia and hopeful about the persistence of anti-colonial solidarity. The "Bandung Spirit" survives—less in states or formal organizations, more in the global symbols and grassroots mobilizations for justice, epitomized today in the Palestinian cause and the ever-relevant demand for histories and futures beyond the legacies of colonialism, racism, and ethnonationalism.

"The most important legacy... is... transnational solidarity and resistance to racism and the colonial sort of order." – Adnan Husain (63:00)