Guerrilla History - From the Archives - The Bandung Conference

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Guerrilla History "From the Archives" is a new series of episodes, consisting of previously patreon-exclusive episodes that we are unlocking for the general public after one year.  This inaugural From the Archives episode was originally released on Patreon on December 25, 2020, and is about the famous Bandung Conference of 1955.  Join us as we describe the historical context of the Bandung Conference, and it's enduring importance. Your hosts are immunobiologist Henry Hakamaki, Professor Adnan Husain, historian and Director of the School of Religion at Queens University, and Revolutionary Left Radio's Breht O'Shea. Follow us on social media!  Our podcast can be found on twitter @guerrilla_pod.  Your contributions make the show possible to continue and succeed!  Please encourage your comrades to join us, which will help our show grow. To follow the hosts, Henry can be found on twitter @huck1995, and also has a patreon to help support himself through the pandemic where he breaks down science and public health research and news at https://www.patreon.com/huck1995.  Adnan can be followed on twitter at @adnanahusain, and also runs The Majlis Podcast, which can be found at https://anchor.fm/the-majlis and the Muslim Societies-Global Perspectives group at Queens University, https://www.facebook.com/MSGPQU/.   Breht is the host of Revolutionary Left Radio, which can be followed on twitter @RevLeftRadio cohost of The Red Menace Podcast, which can be followed on twitter at @Red_Menace_Pod.  You can find and support these shows by visiting https://www.revolutionaryleftradio.com/. Thanks to Ryan Hakamaki, who designed and created the podcast's artwork, and Kevin MacLeod, who creates royalty-free music.

Hello, guerrilla history listeners. This is Adnan Hussein, one of the co-hosts of guerrilla history. Brett, Henry, and I have some news that I hope you'll be excited to hear. More free content for you. Every month, as you know, we record a reconnaissance report, a major episode with a guest about their historical work, as well as an intelligence briefing, a shorter discussion, usually among the three of us. Occasionally we also post a dispatch from the field of contemporary left history, often with a guest about a breaking story or a recent set of events or issues and provide some historical analysis. We also typically record a second intelligence briefing as an exclusive episode for patrons, subscribers at patreon.com slash guerrilla history. We have decided to unlock an intelligence briefing each month after a year has passed as, special from the archive episodes for you to enjoy. We hope you'll find these a useful resource. Of course, if you'd like to subscribe and have early access to intelligence briefings and all

the other additional content like readings and discussions of classic texts, primary sources, reviews and discussions, do become a patron at patreon.com slash gorilla history with our gratitude. We do this because we love to make history a resource in our political education as an activist global left and in our struggles for justice. So we're happy to share these older episodes with you in this series from the archive. As ever, Solidarity. This inaugural from the archive episode was our first intelligence briefing ever recorded from December 2019, the month after we launched guerrilla history. Brett, Henry, and I discussed the important Afro-Asian conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955.

The spirit of Bandung reshaped geopolitics and gave birth to the non-aligned movement. We hope you'll enjoy it in this episode from the Archives. Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Welcome to a guerrilla history intelligence briefing. Reminder to the listeners, intelligence briefings are bonus episodes that we're recording that go up on Patreon first. Half of them are going to be released on a delay, and half of them are going to remain Patreon exclusives. This episode on the Bandung Conference is going to be a Patreon exclusive episode.

So if you're on our Patreon, that's the only way to hear this episode. Now, Adnan, let's get into talking about the Bandung Conference. And, you know, we'll keep in mind that this is a more informal setting than our typical episodes of guerrilla history. The Bandan Conference, I understand before we talk about the conference itself, but in the past, you actually had a show called Radio Bandung. Why don't you mention what that was and then get us into what the Bandung conference was and the historical context for it? Well, thank you, Henry, for that prompt and the reminder of that radio program,

which I think in some ways is a precursor in my own imagination of what I hope guerrilla history can do and grow. even, you know, well beyond, but it was the idea of studying and trying to understand the histories of transnational struggle, of cultures of resistance, of the interlinkages between anti-colonial and anti-imperial movements with anti-racism movements. So the third world struggle against colonialism and the anti-racism struggle in Europe and North America and trying to see those histories as connected. And the reason why it was called Radio Bandung is because after the 1955 conference that really the Afro-Asian conference that was held in Bandung, Indonesia, in April

1955, there was something that people in the third world and broadly who were struggling against oppression, against colonialism for a better world, for equality, talked about as the spirit of Bandung. So this idea that there was some particular ethos to this remarkable venture of bringing together 20 odd, almost 30, newly independent third world, even before they were really thinking about themselves as the third world,

but newly independent African and Asian countries to organize some sort of collaborative international order during the post-World War II era as the world was increasingly being divided into a struggle between the capitalist first world and the communist second world and being pressured by the great powers, particularly the United States,

into formal military treaty organizations. So we all have heard about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. But the United States was busy trying to form similar kinds of military and political communities and treaty organizations to bring them into the sphere of U.S. alliance in Southeast Asia. So Seattle, they tried something the previous year in 1954, I believe it was, the Baghdad Pact. that was for the Middle East to try and encourage these newly liberated countries out of the mandate period to affiliate themselves with the West in some kind of military alliance and keep communism out of the Middle East. So this kind of process was taking place, and leaders like Jawarlal Nehru of India were and succumbens. Karno in Indonesia, were concerned about being forced into some kind of arrangement that would be to the detriment of the independent path of those countries.

And they wondered how in the world they could resist it individually. And so there started to be a sense that perhaps the African and Asian countries themselves should form a third way or a third block, at least to protect their interests in this. And this is the birth of the sort of self-conscious third world and of what would become to be the non-aligned movement. But it starts in some sense by, you know, in 1955 with the Band Dome conference. And it was seen as an inspirational move to put these countries into the flow of history of being able to determine their own futures that inspired people who are still under colonialism all across the world. It led to the Tri-Continental Organization that incorporated

Latin America as well as Africa and Asia. And of course, this was the launching point for solidarity and support for some of the anti-colonial movements in Africa, because actually during this period, there were very few independent African countries. And there will be an episode of guerrilla history about decolonization in Africa coming up soon. And the Bandung conference and recognizing its place in history is a really excellent precursor and background information to what ends up being important in the 1960s and 70s in the struggle for African decolonization. One thing I want to add just for the listeners to understand. So you mentioned the Tri-Continental Audnan, and if you compared the Tri-Continental to the parties at the

Bandung Conference, members at the Tri-Continental were much more ideologically aligned with one another than the members at the Bandung Conference. The Band-Dun Conference had a really wide array of ideologies represented, everything from some communist states all the way to some relatively right-wing states, but what aligned them was not their political ideology, but was their history. of colonization and their place in the third world, this emerging third world that we talked about. And I've got a quote here from Sukarno that I quite enjoyed when I was reading up on the Bandung Conference. And I'll read it before I pitch it back over to YouTube to talk a little bit more about the Bandung Conference. But Sukarno said when talking about how these

transnational unity could be created among these nations that didn't have a lot of, you could think of it as ideological purity between them. Conflict comes not from variety of skins nor from variety of religion, but from variety of desires. We are united by a common destitation of colonialism in whatever form it appears. We are united by a common destitation of racialism. And we are united by a common determination to preserve and stabilize peace in the world. That was what brought these countries together in the Bandung Conference. It wasn't that they had, you know, a broad support of left-wing ideology that was bringing them together. But really, it was this wanting to be free from colonization and exploitation by the first world that was bringing them together.

I don't know if either of you want to comment on that. Well, I'll just say quickly, there's a little microcosmic aspect with the communist revolution in China in which before the nationalist and the communists could go at it themselves, right? They actually cooperated to push out the Japanese imperialists. So this spectrum of different political visions and right wing versus left wing ideologies, sometimes it does get assumed by the bigger and more acute problem of purging that territory, that nation state, that land from colonizers, imperialists, et cetera. And the tensions that occur during and after the expulsion of an external force, I think, is deeply complicated and layered. But you do sort of get the idea of why, you know, somewhat divergent

ideological approaches could come together around this shared goal of pushing out colonialists and et cetera. If I may, Adnan, before I have you jump back in. I just want to mention that that does harken back to something that we had in our latest episode. of guerrilla history with Hissili Yami, where we're talking about figuring out who is the ultimate enemy at any given point in time. Now, as you said, Brett, in certain context, it's an external force that is imposing itself upon you. In other cases, it's the battle for ideology or ideological supremacy within an area. In the case of Nepal, it was the internal conflict between the monarchy and individuals that wanted democracy within the country,

as opposed to the external force of India, which some individuals kind of were getting wrapped up in and thinking of India as the biggest threat at that point, as opposed to the internal threat of a continuation of the monarchy. But as you said, having this kind of clear vision as to who the threat is at the time really does create for some interesting affiliations with other nations that share that vision of who the threat is, whereas in other times where that external threat, perhaps, in the case, as you said, of the nationalists and the communists in China, without that external force being put upon them, you'd never see those groups come together.

Adnan? Indeed. Well, these are really excellent reflections on what was a bit of a puzzle. And you could see that it was, it created a lot of problems in international relations and particularly in discourses. in the United States, for example, where they reacted really negatively to this conference and were petrified, it seemed, by the possibility that it could turn into an opportunity for militant third world nationalism and affiliation with communism, and particularly because of China status. And they worked really hard in the beginning, complaining about, well, why was China

being invited, you know, into this, you know, and what was the status of China? And this is a time where the United States, of course, had no diplomatic relationship with, you know, communist China. And so there was a lot of panic about what the consequences of a coordinated move for cooperation and collaboration by newly independent countries in Africa and Asia, particularly falling under the sway of communism. And because it's around this time that under the Eisenhower administration, they had decided that militant third world nationalism was essentially tantamount to communism as far as they were concerned.

And of course, there were varieties of state policies about how much they wanted to incorporate socialist programs and socialist economics and so on. But nonetheless, any militant third world national. movement that came into power as a result of anti-colonial and anti-imperial organizing ended up being somewhat hostile to the U.S.'s post-Cold War role in their region or in their country because they were afraid of the reimposition essentially of the new form of colonialism by being dominated through economic agreements, military agreements under U.S. power and control. So it was a weird sort of grab bag of groups that had very different trajectories, different kinds of regimes, but what they all were concerned about was recolonization and also not being able to meet the needs of their people in the future because of the imbalance of the economic, international economic order.

They had such overriding problems that usually oftentimes their countries were left in. terrible conditions after the World War. Now, there was a Marshall Plan for Europe to, for the rebuilding of Europe. But World War II, you know, devastated large parts of the Middle East, North Africa, as well as also East, East Asia. And the end of colonialism, so the end of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia was accomplished in some part by the fact that Japanese, invasion really undermined the European colonial powers there. You see similar forces in parts of South Asia that it put pressure on the British, on the Dutch, on the French, that it was impossible for them, you know, without relying upon colonial troops and colonial resources that were under

threat and some of these places were invaded by the Japanese army. That it created this this devastating post-war environment that these new freed countries had enormous challenges to deal with. And they didn't want in this situation of economic and political or military weakness to end up losing their autonomy or being failed, you know, sorts of states. So they had this idea that perhaps at least whether there was ideological diversity and approach, at least if there was some cooperation and collaboration, they might manage to make the transition to an independent sort of future. And I think the other concern that they had is the reopening of war that at the time we call it the Cold War. But, you know, there was a military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula

in the early 50s, late 40s, early 50s, that, you know, really, you know, may not have meant much to observers who looked in the first world in the west who looked at this as simply a matter of first world capitalism against um you know the communist world but for these other countries they saw them potentially being torn apart and victims of these ideological forces so one of the big outcomes of the bandung conference in their 10-point declaration the dasasila bandung was uh you know some principles on the declaration a declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation so one of the things they were most interested in was the resumption of ideological conflicts and war in the third world in africa and asia that would exacerbate the situation and reimpose a kind of colonialism in a new

form so they saw peace as a real problem and wanted to bolster the united nations charter and ability to have peaceful cooperative relations and thus protect sovereignty of these new post-colonial nations. So it made for some odd bedfellows at least. And it means it meant that it probably also undermines some of the actual radical possibilities for solidarity and cooperation. But what's interesting is that quite apart from the international relations world, it inspired peoples of the third world around the world to see on the world stage their countries potentially cooperating with one another and combating and making a very serious statement about the inadmissibility of colonialism and racism because this is what they clearly felt was the legacy or the outcomes

that had sustained colonialism and that the post-colonial order if it didn't do something about the inherently racist nature of the world system, that these gains of political independence would be short-lived and undermined by social and economic factors. Yeah, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the role that the Soviet Union sort of played not directly, but sort of as something that needed to be confronted in this conference because you see a little bit of it in France Fanon's Wretched up the Earth.

It's this, I think he called it, Manichaeanism, right? The split of the world between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and everything else was just sort of peripheral to that or places where proxy wars took place, et cetera. And then this is also Mao Zedong was obviously a key part of this whole thing. And this is a year before the Sino-Soviet split started occurring in which, you know, Khrushchev came out, said Stalin was terrible. The destalinization period ensued. China saw this as pure revisionism.

It led to like military squabbles along the border. Ultimately, later down the road, Mao meets with Nixon, right, and says that the Soviet Union is the number one threat, which is fascinating and bewildering to leftists today. It's also sad of what could have been, right? What would a Soviet and Chinese solidarity have produced instead of the split? We may never know, but what was the role that the Soviet Union played in this conference? Well, they were, I mean, I think I can't remember. remember if exactly obviously this was a great concern of the United States to keep communist countries out and they were complaining about China's involvement at the very outset of all of this but I think if I'm not mistaken that the Soviet Union was quite a bit more subtle and sophisticated about its attitude and public statements on this conference seeing it as a positive development to protect, you know, the world from imperialism and colonialism and that this was an important step. We can even think that, of course,

you know, if we think back even to the revolution and, you know, it's a world away by this point, but, you know, Lenin had really taken a strong stance against imperialism and endorsed anti-colonial movements and so there was some sense that you know if these countries were allowed to be free of US and capitalist domination this would actually be beneficial for the future social you know for socialism on a global scale in the future so I think they took the point of in contrast to the United States of being you know with qualified support for it and not to you know, about why aren't we part of it, which was something that the United States kept insisting. It's like, well, why is it that we can't, we're not a colonial power? Why can't we be

part of it? Why can't we join, you know, in it? And they tried to use, the U.S. tried to use its proxy, you know, allies to establish a certain kind of agenda. So Romulo from the Philippines, who was a U.S. ally, I think the Pakistani military military government, of the time was also very pro-United States. You had Turkey, which was a NATO power during this period. And so you felt that they had to push their agenda through these proxies, but they made such a public, you know, hue and cry about being excluded from the conference that I think it was very easy for the Soviet Union to just pragmatically say,

well, you know, this is a good thing for these countries to get together. and take a stand against imperialism without worrying about whether they were part of it or not. But, you know, I could be missing some details, but my senses is that they took a more sophisticated, low-key approach to, you know, accomplishing, saying we will work with all these countries and so on, but not insisting that it was a problem that they hadn't been invited the way the United States did. Yeah. So I took one quick thing, and then I did a thought. The quick thing is, that you're right, Pakistan was at this time pro-U.S., and their leader at the time was amusingly named Muhammad Ali. In any case, that was the quick thought, the thing that, you know,

stood out to me when I was doing my studying up on this. But what I wanted to say is that you're right that on my, you know, from what I've seen, the Soviets took a more sophisticated view of this conference, whereas the U.S., on the other hand, I just want to contrast them slightly here. The U.S. completely missed the point of the conference and completely missed the makeup of the conference, why these individual nations were aligning themselves with each other at Bandung. So we mentioned that the U.S. had a very, let's say, angry response to the fact that these third world nations were coming together. They thought, oh, you know, all of these formerly colonized nations, these third world

nations, by having them come together and show solidarity with each other, you know, this is obviously what they're thinking rather than what they're explicitly saying, but it makes it harder to exploit them if they're standing up together. But amusingly, individuals within the U.S., people that you think would be well-informed individuals completely were missing the point of why certain countries where they're there and why certain countries were not there. This is something that was, here's a quote from Vijay Prashad's excellent, the darker nations, speaking about Bandung, he says, as the publisher of the New York Times noted, quote,

the meeting is not truly regional. Australia and New Zealand are, for example, more intimately concerned with its problems than is the gold coast. Nationalist China, which of course is Taiwan at the time, the two Koreas, Israel and South Africa, been excluded, completely missing the point that this is a meeting of places that are against colonialism, against racialization. Of course, South Africa is not going to be there. They were an apartheid nation. The entire point of this conference is that they're against colonialism and they're against racialization. But yet, somehow in the U.S., this came

across as a solely as a pseudo regional body rather than a body of nations that were aligned on any sort of material basis rather than just a regional basis. And as Vijay then points out in the very next sentence, and this is where it becomes particularly amusing, the same paper, New York Times, had no problem with the involvement of the United States in Britain and the regional PAC centered around Manila and Baghdad, perhaps because these two states already had a presumptive global role, whereas the darker nation should aspire to nothing more than a strictly local ambit. And I think that that really hits on how the U.S. views associations like this that are based on ideological or material conditions rather than regional conditions. And of course,

when the U.S. looks outside of the regional context, it's always, well, you know, sure, we're not in that region, but of course, our interests lie in that region. missing the point that the interests of these nations that were there were aligned with each other, whereas some of the nations that were excluded, their interests did not align with the underlying, you know, material conditions and ideology of the nations that were present. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out. Any other final thoughts?

We have a few minutes left before we should wrap this up. Well, I guess I just did want to say that the inspiration is an important. legacy. Now, of course, one of the other legacies was, you know, one strand of it leads to the non-aligned movement, another ideological strand is creating the tri-continental. And so this Bandung moment had a real resonance institutionally in international relations and affiliations of that kind. But if we go apart from the statist perspective on this, and if we get back to a little bit about that spirit of Bandung and what hope it's signify, and why it was inspiring for transnational

solidities and cultures of resistance and the linking of anti-colonialism and anti-racism is if you look at the reception, we talked a little bit about the United States government and the State Department and their interests and panic over the possibility of a third world collaboration as a block to resist imperialism and colonialism. is that it was also very interesting and popular among African-American thinkers and dissidents, you might say.

So, for example, there was a lot of concern about the fact that a sitting member of Congress from Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell, actually went to attend this conference and was allowed to attend the conference, even though, you know, he was a U.S. government official, but he went to attend it kind of not as a representative of the U.S. government, but as a, you know, black American that saw solidarity with this project of combating racism on a global scale. Another person who was very interested in it and traveled and attended the conference was Richard Wright, the famous, you know, communist author, but this is during the period after his Communist Party sort of period and affiliation

he writes this really strange book called the color curtain so you know playing on the iron curtain and the fact that you had the Warsaw Pact and so he talks about the color curtain and he goes and acts as a kind of observer anthropologist talks with a few people writes this very strange book

that doesn't jive at all with a kind of perspective or outlook you would expect from a leftist, internationalist sort of thinker and writer, and you realize when you look at it and look more closely is that he was sponsored essentially by this cultural front organization that was sponsored by the CIA. And so he went and he writes this report and basically publishes this kind of view that's giving advice about essentially how to make sure that the third world doesn't go communist, you know, and that's the kind of purpose of it. And then lastly, I would point out in terms of reactions and responses from within the African American community is somebody like Malcolm X,

who was absolutely inspired by the rationale of a coalition of peoples of color, the darker nations actually coming together because his position was that inside the United States, African Americans, black people are a minority and that our politics is being configured in demanding our rights around that kind of fact that we are a small minority and so we have to beg and be worried about our position and that we don't feel that we can resist the racism and the violence that's directed against these communities in an obvious and equal sort of manner because, well, we're a small minority and it's impossible for us to adopt those practices. That's why we have to do the sit-ins.

That's why we have to do. And he was against the passive, non-violent resistance. He said, you know, he thought that you had a right of self-defense. But, of course, people were too frightened to adopt that kind of a rhetoric and that kind of a politics as a minority. as a racial minority in the United States. So his purpose in seeing the Bandung Conference was to communicate that the vast majority of people in the world looked like you and me, he meant to his African-American audience.

And if we could create solidarity with the free peoples who have emerged out of colonialism, who are anti-imperialists and who are anti-racist because they suffered the racism of colonialism, that would give us bonds of solidarity to stand up and put pressure because maybe those countries would take an interest in our struggle if we take an interest in their struggle. So it was a kind of internationalist perspective

that he wanted to develop on the interrelationship between the anti-racism struggle at home in the United States and international struggle against imperialism abroad and globally. And so I think that that's one other reason why 195 and the Bandung moment opened up possibilities for thinking of new trajectories of politics, of solidarity among peoples. Now, these didn't always emerge. They were difficult to develop. Of course, local interests ended up taking precedence. You have, you know, the force of neo-colonialism and imperialism in the capitalist order, you know, throughout.

the 50s and 60s, you have the overturning, as we heard, and we talked with Vijay Prasad about in Washington Bullets, his book that talked about how often these movements were derailed in the third world. But you could see the potentiality of that politics that was being envisioned at that time, and that was symbolized by the spirit of Bandong. Well, we're almost out of time. So let's just do quickly our final thoughts or any last interesting points that each of us want to raise. So Brett, do you have any final thoughts on the Bandung conference or any other interesting points that you want to leave the listeners with as we wrap it up? I would just say I love that commentary on Malcolm X and black Americans looking at

this conference as something that could bolster their own fight here at home. And from a Leninist perspective, right, the prison house of colonies, the black population within America was a colony within a nation state and still is in many ways. And so this aspirational search for international as solidarity, although it didn't exactly achieve it in every way it wanted to, as nothing has been able to achieve it in the ways that, you know, folks like us that think like us would like for these things to be achieved, it is still this aspirational continued attempt to create these

internationalist bonds of solidarity. And I think, you know, zooming out, we can see this as one of the more concerted attempts to do exactly that. And the project is unfinished. It's an ongoing project in a lot of ways. And so to historicize this conference and then understand the trajectory ever since and to know that those struggles in lots of ways are obviously continuing to go on, I think can be a source of inspiration and show that these things can happen,

that internationalism is possible and to bring back some of these ways of viewing problems, not as simply national problems, but as inherently international problems, as inherently tied up with the long and brutal history of colonialism. And that's important for that reason, at least. I'll give my final thought now. And then I'll let Adnan, since he was the leader of this conversation, leave you the audience with something to think about as we go forward. I couldn't agree more with what Brett is saying with Adnan are saying.

So instead of leaving my overall perspective on the conference, I think that we've already done a pretty good job of that. There's one aspect that I just want to underscore. a little bit, which is that the Bandung Conference, we tend to think of the United Nations as a fairly toothless association of nations with very little sort of enforcement, very little impact on the material conditions of individuals. But the effect that the United Nations does have, in large part, was due to the Bandung Conference. Having these nations ally themselves together in the struggle for anti-colonialism and anti-racialization, as well as later on the

anti-nuclear struggle. This also was pioneered at the Bandung Conference. It was one of the things that they wanted to push for the hardest was pushing against nuclear weapons. And the IAEA, the International Association of Atomic Energy or whatever the IAEA stands for, the the scope of it was defined at the Bandung Conference before it was instituted at the UN. And the fact that you could have a block of nations, a fairly diverse block of nations with diverse ideologies, but that were willing to stand up for each other in a context, in any context, really, having them being able to band together at the Bandung Conference allowed them to ban together at the UN and actually push forward.

things that materially got things done at the UN to the extent that things can get done at the UN. So I just want to underscore that, that this conference, in addition to just fostering the solidarity and having them lay out guidelines and having some sort of cooperation between these nations, it actually led to some material effect on the United Nations, which is about the biggest transnational entity that you can possibly think of. So I think that that was something that was interesting and is worth looking into, for the listeners, if you want to look into the Bandung conferences, you know, tenants that they came out with and how that was translated into the UN over time, because some of these points were taken up and became essentially international

law. Now, Adnan, why don't you give something that you want the listeners to think about? Well, I think that's a great point that you made about some institutional legacies. We did mention also the non-aligned movement that was important as a block in. the UN and, you know, you can see that its legacy in certain organizations or sort of sub, you know, organizations and agencies of the United Nations. I guess I would say in terms of other legacies besides those ones that I talked about in terms of imagining global solidarity and transnational solidarity is that during this time, most of Africa was still under colonialism and when they were dealing also with settler colonies like Rhodesia, South Africa,

and this was one mechanism for African and Asian countries to provide solidarity and support for the South African struggle, for example. So this was important during those periods of the 60s and 1970s. And also, I would say that when we started having the World Social Forum, in 2001, for example, I at least for one, now, whatever it's evolved into, which is just kind of a meeting of NGOs, and it's almost a, you know, perhaps a kind of corporatized world of international social solidarity and interconnection. When it was first announced, however, it's seemed to me that in some sense it was channeling that spirit of Bandung of trying to bring peoples in solidarity together to accomplish what their governments were not going to do,

not able to do, or were actively preventing, you know, from doing. And it was a kind of sense of global resistance coming together in some collected way, meeting together for action as a counterpoint to Davos and all that it was accomplishing nefariously with the global trade organizing of global trade globalization and so on it was attempted well globalizing people's solidarity and so I think that's a important project it hasn't been furthered the way it perhaps should but I think we have to think along these lines and take inspiration from those moments where actively seemed like an available possibility to understand, well, why didn't it happen and what can we envision for the future to really put people in collective struggle in communication and in

contact with one another to do what, you know, as I said, the governments have not done and are actively preventing in many cases from happening. Excellent. Well, that'll do it for this intelligence briefing on guerrilla history again this episode is going to remain a patreon exclusive so the only way that you're going to be hearing this is if you're on our patreon if you have friends or comrades that you think would enjoy this sort of show and might have some extra money laying about that they would like to support independent left media with let them know about our patreon tell them that you enjoyed this episode and hopefully we can get a few more patrons to really help the show get up and running and and you know with a good

amount of support behind it, getting the word out there is really helpful. So if you enjoyed this, make sure to get the word out there. Make sure to follow us on social media. You can follow the show at Gorilla underscore Pod. G-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-E-R-I-L-A-U-S-Pod. You're on our Patreon so you can see the URL for the Patreon right above where you're listening to this. But guys, how can the listeners find you, Adnan? Well, you can find me on Twitter at Adnan-A-Husain-H-H-U-S. A-I-N, and also take a listen to my other podcast that I'm involved with. The M-A-L-L-I-S, especially if you're interested in Middle East Islamic World, third-world kinds of discussion.

Highly recommended. It's excellent. Brett, how can the listeners find you and your other shows? Yeah, and as for me, you can go to Revolutionary LeftRadio.com. I actually just updated the website to include guerrilla history, so that's everything is centralized there. you can find Red Menace, Rev. Left, and Corrilla History on that one centralized location. So definitely check that out.

Excellent. Thanks a lot, guys. We'll talk. We'll have another recording real soon for another intelligence briefings. And thanks for listening, listeners, solidarity with all of you. Thank you. Thank you.