Introduction: Bandung's Cultural Afterlives

multipolar world," it is "individual countries, rather than collectives," that "may end up having the most clout" (Economist 2025).We could not disagree more with this vacating of the internationalist solidarities that are generally ciphered "Bandung."It first needs to be noted that -amid and as against wars, the coalitions of right-wing regimes, and economic depression in several countries in what was erstwhile termed the Third World -the "Bandung spirit" was celebrated in a number of conferences in different countries, publications, and a film festival, in both the South and the North. 1 Granted, these were not official, governmental events; but all the more rea-1.Contrary to the article's claim that the anniversary was a "non-event," celebrations -to give but a few examples -abound in Colombia, Sri Lanka ("Seventy Years After Bandung: Challenges and Struggles on the Road to Self-Determination and South-South Solidarity," organized by IDEAS [International Development Economics Associates], June 2 -3, 2025, https://www.networkideas.org/announcements/2025/04/ideas_bandung_conference/); in Rabat, Morocco ("Bandung at Seventy: Hope, Betrayal, and the Many Lives of the Global Postcolony," al-Akhawayn University, April 17 -18, 2025, https://aui.ma/news/bandung-at-70-rethinking-solidarity-in-a-fractured-world); in Bandung, Surabaya, and Bliter, Indonesia ("Bandung at Seventy: Assessments and Perspectives to Build the World Anew," October 28 -November 1, 2025, information available at Bandung Spirit's news blog, https://bandungspirit