Friday, November 28th, 2014 Non-Alignment and Afro-Asianism: The Difficult History of Two Sibling Movements

Description

Scholars often confuse the Non-Aligned Movement with the Afro-Asianism Movement. Although both were rooted in Nehruvian thinking, they had different, though overlapping, sets of members and goals. In three parts, the current article explores how the movement emerged. From 1946-56, Jawaharlal Nehru conceived the Non-Alignment motion and eventually convinced Iosip Broz Tito and Gamal Abdel Nasser of his ideas. In the five subsequent years, the Yugoslav and Egyptian leaders promoted the ideas of establishing a formal movement. Finally, from 1961 to 1965, during its first four years as a movement,the Non-Alignment struggled and eventually emancipated itself from Afro-Asianism. The article uses archival documents from India, former Yugoslavia, former East Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and Australia.

Lorenz Lüthi is an Associate Professor for the History of International Relations at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His first book, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World, was published by Princeton University Press in 2008. The book has been released in a Polish translation by Dialog in Warsaw in 2011; a Chinese translation is in preparation. Lüthi has widely published on the Cold War in East Asia, Sino-Soviet relations, and the Vietnam War. He is currently working a second book project on the regional Cold Wars in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. Lüthi’s research has led him to work in archives in China, Australia, Russia, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.