Beyond the Bandung Conference:
Promoting Stabilization and Unity in Religious Diversity
by: Afkar Aristoteles Mukhaer
In 1955, the countries of Asia and Africa gathered at a conference in Bandung, Indonesia. The conference was a significant historical milestone since it was the first time post-colonial nations declared international peace and cooperation. The ten points, known as the Dasasila, also declared independent governance, especially for the participating members. It enabled the Bandung Conference to make a spirit contribution to the anti-colonial agenda.
Nevertheless, the world’s nations today face challenges in maintaining unity and the diversity of their societies. Antoinette Kankindi and Frans Dokman, in their introduction to the book “Beyond the Spirit of Bandung: Philosophies of National Unity: Secular or Religious?” (2023), note that post-conference Asian and African countries have differing approaches to minimizing unrest. This problem also occurs in Western countries like the Netherlands, with the rise of right-wing movements that human rights activists believe can perpetuate discriminatory policies against minority and marginalized communities.
In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of this AA conference and in response to the current situation, the Netherlands-Indonesia Consortium for Muslim-Christian Relations (NICMCR) emphasizes the values of the Spirit of Bandung during the 10th Interfaith Dialogue at the Indonesia House Amsterdam on 3 October 2025. The theme is decided on the thematic querie: Beyond the Spirit of Bandung: Secular West – Religious East?
Deconstructing the Distinction of “Secular West and Religious East”
In general, the world appears to be divided into two parts: the secular West and the religious East. A secular approach has been quite effective in development politics in Western European countries like the Netherlands and France. In contrast, the Asian countries like Indonesia, India, and Malaysia, religiosity is an important aspect of societal identity and culture, fostering unity.
In fact, the dynamics of societies within both secular and religious systems are not that simple. Dokman, an associate researcher at the Nijmegen Institute for Mission Studies, argues that the dynamics of societal life blur the boundaries between the two. Asian countries, considered the “religious East,” are developing secular approaches, as seen in Japan and Vietnam, to maintain stability. A secular approach is also being implemented in Indonesia, a society with diverse religious backgrounds. Alissa Wahid, Coordinator of the Gusdurian Network, states that this approach is needed to balance the influential power and diversity of religions by integrating religious freedom and focusing on strengthening shared values.
Meanwhile, a 2022 survey presented by Dokman showed that people in Europe consider religion to be an important aspect of life. Furthermore, world religions, specifically Islam and Christianity, are transnational and inspire societies to unite in dialogue. This means that religion cannot be separated, even within a secular political system. He adds that the ever-present aspect of religion also encourages the development of international relations through dialogue.
There are challenges in upholding the values of the Bandung Spirit, which promote anti-colonialism. According to a journalist and scholar at the African Studies Center in Leiden, Habtom Yohannes, these values have not been fully realized. Despite their participation in the Bandung Conference, African countries face internal colonization. Religion is constructed by the state, with only four recognized religions: the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Catholicism, Evangelical Lutheranism, and Sunni Islam. It makes religion a political weapon for seizing and maintaining power, thus contributing to the failure of democratic transitions, including the persecution of unrecognized religions.
The spirit of Bandung is not even upheld in its own country, Indonesia. Habtom highlights Indonesia’s stance on improving relations with the Netherlands, its former colonizer, to continue cooperation and engagement. An unbalanced relationship exists between the two countries within a liberal political framework, with the result of the extension of neocolonialism as the external front. Furthermore, similar to Africa, religion is also used as a political weapon by the state, including restrictions on the establishment of religious services for minority religions. Therefore, commemorating the Bandung Conference is not enough to simply view it as a historical milestone. Furthermore, its values of decolonization must be upheld to overcome external and internal forms of control.
Decolonizing Knowledge, Religion, and Agency
The dialogue introduces decolonization thoughts as an approach, which highlights the intersectionality between knowledge, agency, and other topics separated by the colonial worldview. In a multi-annual Joint Research project, three NICMCR working groups focus on decolonizing research methods from the disciplines of education, ecology and gender studies. Samsul Maarif from the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies and for this research representing the ecological viewpoint, explains that coloniality fosters the ideal of the “legitimate man,” which excludes various groups and their knowledge. It also reproduces structural inequalities and oppression such as racism, sexism, patriarchy, heterosexism, and ageism.
This colonial hegemony persists in European countries, such as the Netherlands. However, the worldview that underpins this state system poses a challenge to maintaining unity and stability because it creates segregation in today’s European plural societies. Addressing this issue, Ina ter Avest, a professor of religious education at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, states that a decolonizing approach should also be applied in the society of the Netherlands. Its goal is a shift that focuses on interrelationships, interdependencies, and transformation within diversity.
Ter Avest emphasizes decolonization in education as a crucial foundation for knowledge formation in society. She offers the FLOW (Finding your Life Orientation and a Diversity of Worldviews) Model for education that is open to inclusiveness. This model encourages students and teachers to explore issues in completely different contexts to ensure pluralistic understanding and adaptation. It requires an evaluation that frees students from the colonized I-position perspective into a multi-voiced self. In her pedagogy, learning requires dialogue as an arena for collective learning to voice unseen positions and perspectives. Thus, participants in education can foster a sense of solidarity, harmony, and creativity.
Furthermore, Maarif emphasizes that coloniality constructs a paradigm of world religions that normalize the commodification, exclusion, and discrimination against non-privileged or adat (indigenous) groups. This paradigm narrows orthodox religiosity, such as the concepts of Muslim and Christian, into controllable classifications. He advocates a decolonization paradigm committed to relationality, which places all entities in nature as intersubjectively connected ethically and reciprocally.
A decolonization approach can draw from the way adat people view the world. Irene Umbu Lolo, a STT Gereja Kristen Sumba scholar, describes the cosmology of the Marapu people’s religiosity, which sacralizes nature, humans, and other interconnected creatures. This system prioritizes harmony, peace, purity, and balance between God, humans, and nature. Not only sacred, Marapu tradition views nature as Mother Earth, capable of “giving nourishment and life, and receiving us creatures when we die (Ina Dukka Ina – Ama Dukka Ama).” From the gender lense, Umbu Lolo argues that its thought gives women agency the power to remind and teach society to maintain a balance between the use and preservation of nature.
Conclusion
Coloniality carries ideals built to control and exclude many. It involves marginalization and discrimination through racism, sexism, and patriarchy, while also encouraging the overexploitation of nature. In order to liberate ourselves from coloniality, it is important to revisit the spirit of the 1955 Bandung Conference. It was a historic moment that brought together post-colonial Asian and African nations to promote independence.
However, many countries participating in the conference, moreover Indonesia as its host, inherited colonial systems and knowledge, preventing many aspects of its spirit from being realized. It might have resulted in internal colonization, where religion became a political weapon to perpetuate discrimination and marginalization against minority communities and adat groups. This system also became an obstacle to unity and just peace. Simultaneously, coloniality also hinders Western countries like the Netherlands, which today boasts a diverse society from various cultures. This creates segregation, stigma, and the rise of right-wing politics that threaten the inclusiveness of national life.
Given these challenges, it is crucial to revive the decolonization spirit of the Bandung Conference, transcending the division between postcolonial and former colonial states. The spirit must address the complex dynamics of societal governance, which often blur the boundaries between secular and religious concepts. Religion is a crucial aspect of societal life and can foster the development of international relations through dialogue. On the other hand, secularism serves as a counterbalance to the influence and diversity of religious communities, while reinforcing the value of religious freedom.
To support decolonization, education plays a crucial role in promoting awareness of inclusivity and justice in societal diversity. The FLOW model, as presented by Ter Avest, offers education that fosters a multiplicity of positions through exploration and evaluation. This model aims to increase self-awareness in studying diversity by freeing participants from the perspective of the colonized I-position. Dialogue, as a pedagogy, provides an arena for unheard voices to be heard in understanding different cultural contexts. In this regard, students develop a sense of solidarity, creativity, and harmony in responding to differences. To enable a wider audience to participate in interreligious dialogue, enriching discussions, and embracing diversity, religious paradigms must be decolonized. Maarif suggests that decolonizing religion can provide opportunities for adat communities, with their own paradigms, to participate as groups that have historically enjoyed privilege and been discriminated against by the colonial system.
Dialogue must encompass indigenous religious paradigms grounded in intersubjective relational ethics toward fellow humans and non-human entities within their cosmologies. In this sense, dialogue can present intersectionality of issues such as gender, religion, social issues, politics, ecology, and so on. Lolo provides an example of the Marapu adat community, whose beliefs view nature as sacred Mother Earth. Bringing this perspective into the dialogue, along with inviting the Marapu people, allows for discussions on women’s rights and community-based environmental conservation. If such dialogue brings them together with academics, it may offer a strong framework for collaboration to realize decolonization inspired by the spirit of Bandung.