The Cold War and the Postcolonial Moment

Venue: Zurich (Switzerland)
Period: Jun. 3 - 4, 2011

In September 1961, the first conference of non-aligned nations took place in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The idea behind the meeting was not new to many of the assembled delegates. Freedom activists from the European colonies in Asia, Africa, and South America had been discussing issues such as resistance against imperialism and peaceful coexistence for decades already, often together with pacifist and socialist intellectuals from Europe. They had gathered in Brussels in February 1927 in a conference of the League against Imperialism, and then in Bandung in April 1955. There, the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa attempted to organize themselves as the joint voice of the Third World, an illusion which almost instantly dissolved.

For Tito’s Yugoslavia, non-alignment became a matter of survival after its break with the Soviet Union and its refusal to join the NATO pact. Tito was quick to pick up the idea of peaceful coexistence and to wrap it into a new ideology. The special relationship developing between Tito, Nehru and Nasser after the Brioni Meeting of 1956, enabled Tito to host the Belgrade Conference of 1961. The new Movement of non-aligned states, united until today by minimal common goals and administration, was finally successful in offering the countries of Asia, Africa and South America a platform to speak together as one voice in forums such as the United Nations.

This conference remembers Belgrade 1961 by looking back at the ideological beginnings of the NAM in the times of the freedom movements and the founding of postcolonial states, examining the influence of its intellectual and political leaders, analyzing Yugoslavia’s role in the Movement, and discussing NAM’s function after the end of the Cold War, uniting senior and junior researchers and professionals from area studies, world history, political sciences.

See the attached Program for full list of participants and break down of the pannels.

Admission to the conference is free. For more information, contact Dr. Nataša Mišković at miskovic@access.uzh.ch

Dr. Nataša Mišković
Historisches Seminar der Universität Zürich
Abt. Osteuropäische Geschichte
Karl Schmid-Str. 4, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland
e-mail:miskovic@access.uzh.ch