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.

The flags remain. 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 interests, united by a determination to assert their independence and sovereignty.

The meeting focused on political, economic and cultural cooperation, human rights, self-determination, colonialism and international peace.

It produced the Ten Principles of Bandung, which included respect for sovereignty and human rights, equality among nations, peaceful coexistence and international cooperation.

More than 70 years later, those principles remain central to the museum’s presentation of an event that helped give countries outside the dominant global powers of the time a collective diplomatic voice.

Christoforus Katon, head of the section for promotion of the Asian-African Conference, told the visiting journalists that the principles remain relevant because they were rooted in peace, sovereignty, equality and cooperation.

But the Bandung story extends beyond the conference itself.

The main building, now known as Gedung Merdeka, or Independence Building, was constructed in 1921. Its transformation is part of the history preserved by the museum.

The building originally served as Sociëteit Concordia, an exclusive social club built for colonial-era Dutch elites.

Ahead of the 1955 conference, it was acquired and renovated by the Indonesian government and turned into a venue for representatives of Asian and African nations asserting a new political identity.

The symbolism was deliberate: a venue of colonial privilege became the stage for a gathering centred on independence and equality.

The journalists who carried the story

Another story preserved inside the museum is that of the journalists who brought the conference to audiences around the world.

About 377 journalists travelled to Bandung to cover the gathering, according to the museum’s historical presentation.

Their tools now look primitive compared with today’s smartphones and instant digital publishing.

Cameras, typewriters and teleprinter equipment are preserved as reminders of a time when getting a story from Bandung to readers elsewhere required physical equipment, transmission systems and patience.

The objects also highlight the role of journalism in shaping international understanding of the conference.

The journalists did not simply record speeches; their reports carried the significance of Bandung beyond the conference hall and across borders.

More than seven decades later, the museum is asking a new generation of journalists to perform a similar role.

At the end of the tour, the museum guide offered a message to the Kenyan visitors:

“I hope the spirit you can bring to your country, you spread there through your news,” the guide said.

From Bandung’s memory to Africa’s future

That role is becoming more significant as Indonesia seeks to deepen its engagement with Africa.

Kurnia said the museum has seen African students become part of its wider outreach through Indonesian scholarship programmes and cooperation with universities in Bandung.

The museum receives about 80,000 visitors a year, with attendance rising to around 1,000 visitors a day during busy periods such as weekends and school holidays, according to museum officials.

Visitors come from Indonesia and abroad, with China, the Netherlands and Japan among the leading international sources.

African visitors represent a smaller share, but Indonesian officials see them as an important part of the museum’s future engagement.

Kurnia said the museum has worked with universities to organise student gatherings and tours, creating opportunities for young Indonesians and Africans to meet around their shared history.

The institution also wants to work more closely with museums and cultural institutions across Africa, including through joint exhibitions.

“We would love to have collaboration with African museums,” Kurnia said, recalling previous discussions about exhibitions involving Kenya.

Such partnerships would allow the Bandung story to be told beyond Indonesia while giving African institutions an opportunity to contribute their own perspectives on the history of Asia-Africa relations.

Can an old idea survive a new world?

The question confronting Bandung today is therefore not whether the 1955 conference was historically important. The harder question is what its legacy can do today.

The world has changed dramatically since Sukarno opened the conference. The colonial empires that dominated much of Asia and Africa have largely disappeared.

New economic powers have emerged, global competition has shifted and conflicts have created new pressures on the international system.

Yet Indonesian officials argue that the principles that emerged from Bandung can still provide a basis for cooperation.

Ani Widiani, a secretary at the West Java Provincial Tourism and Culture Office, said Asian and African countries have the potential to contribute to global peace by working more closely together.

“I think Asian-African countries can contribute to the world to promote peace,” Widiani said.

Her emphasis, however, was not on recreating the political circumstances of 1955. Instead, she pointed to practical areas such as tourism, education and trade.

“We can cooperate in many areas,” she said. “I hope we can grow together in terms of economy and friendship.”

That reflects a broader shift in how Indonesia is presenting the Bandung legacy. The language of solidarity remains, but the emphasis is increasingly on practical connections: businesses meeting businesses, students meeting students, tourists visiting each other’s countries and cultural institutions sharing exhibitions.

A museum still being built

The institution preserving that history is itself changing. The museum is undergoing renovations as officials seek to preserve an ageing historic building while improving its facilities and technology.

Kurnia acknowledges that the institution has not yet reached the international museum standards it wants to achieve.

“We would love to have the international standard of the museum,” she said.

“We know that our museum today is still far from that, but we are on our way to reach those goals.”

The museum has introduced temporary exhibitions and uses social media to reach wider audiences, while further modernisation is planned.

That tension — between preserving history and making it relevant to contemporary audiences — is at the centre of the museum’s future.

Its greatest asset, however, cannot easily be digitised.

Visitors can walk into the same conference hall where delegates gathered in 1955. They can see the furniture, flags and photographs.

They can stand where journalists once worked with typewriters and teleprinters to tell the world what was happening in Bandung.

For Kenyan visitors, there is an additional historical layer. Kenya was not among the 29 countries represented at the 1955 conference — it was still under British colonial rule, with its struggle for independence unfolding during the same broader period of African decolonisation that shaped the politics of Bandung.

The museum therefore offers Kenyan visitors more than a history lesson about another country.

It provides a window into the political world that shaped the generation of African leaders who would go on to define the continent’s post-independence diplomacy.

And it raises a question that extends beyond the walls of Gedung Merdeka: If Bandung was once about newly independent countries finding a collective voice, what should solidarity between Asia and Africa look like today?

Keeping Bandung alive

There is no single answer inside the museum. Instead, there are objects, photographs, stories and people trying to connect them to the present.

The museum receives tens of thousands of visitors each year. African students are part of its outreach. Officials are discussing cooperation with African museums.

Indonesian authorities are promoting tourism, education and business links with African countries. And journalists are being asked to carry the story further.

For Kurnia, people-to-people connections may ultimately be as important as preserving the conference as a historical event. For Widiani, the legacy can be expressed through practical cooperation.

For the museum itself, preserving Bandung means ensuring that visitors do not simply leave knowing what happened in 1955, but also asking what those ideas mean now.

Standing inside the conference hall, the passage of time is difficult to ignore. The delegates are gone. The cameras are different.

The technology has changed beyond recognition. The geopolitical map that surrounded the conference has been transformed.

But the room remains.

And so does the idea that brought Asian and African countries together in Bandung: that nations from two continents could meet as equals, defend their sovereignty and seek cooperation on their own terms.

Indonesia’s renewed interest in Africa is now giving that idea a contemporary test.