70 years after Bandung:

The Bandung Conference marked a pivotal moment in the Non-Aligned Movement’s pursuit of a more representative and equitable international system, asserting independence from the competing blocs of the West and what was known as the Soviet Union. It helped crystalize the movement’s demands, priorities, and principles in its effort to reshape the international order.

Today, the world is facing another critical juncture in global politics. Multipolarity and multi-ordering are gaining momentum in global affairs, along with the growing desire among many middle powers to avoid entanglemenent in the camp politics stemming from the emerging great power rivalry. For middle powers, adopting multi-alignments has become a strategic way to navigate the binary choices presented by the great power competition between the US and China or Russia and the West.

Against this backdrop, the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, in partnership with Oxford University, is organizing a public panel discussion to explore the historical lessons of the 1955 Bandung Conference and their relevance to ongoing debates on reforming the global order. The session will address key questions:  What is the historical legacy of the Bandung Conference and the non-alignment movement? On the global order, how do contemporary groupings such as BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization resemble or differ from the Non-Aligned Movement of the past? How has the concept of non-alignment evolved into today’s practice of multi-alignment for many middle powers? What lessons does the internationalism of the Third World from the past offer for today’s search to reform or remake the international order?