Strengthen Historical Milestones of Asia-Africa Relation
Have I told you about my abroad friend who recently study in London School of Economics, which I asked for help to reviewed my article, then she talks about how annoying the grammar was? Well,because another failure (even without a single feedback!) of being published in The Jakarta Post, it is also become my pleasure to post the article in this humble blog. Enjoy more reading!
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There's more than just sufficient of discussion regarding issues on poverty, famine, diseases and all the poor title of being a nation about Africa, as if certain that this continent of 54 countries and 2000 more languages would get no any future to become more prosperous nations.
And we should pity ourselves, if we just take of any American films picturing all of those conflicts, kids of wars, jewelries black market and so on for granted, to describe the nature of African living. Those, more or less, influence our mindset of how we think, feel and do about The Black Continent of Africa, that would bring huge consequences in terms of public policy that Indonesia should be made decision about.
To say countries of Africa are "underdeveloped countries" itself is a rather naive point of view, I would say, and just shows how Africa is constantly misunderstood and misrepresented, because it is much neglecting the data and variables of what we talk about, when we talk about "the developed countries". Do we notice that six of the world's ten fastest growing-economies by annual average GDP growth in 2011-2015 are countries located in Africa? (The Economist, 2015).
Of course, this continent and the countries, like many other countries beyond the continental border, is still struggling for the better life of its people and fighting for anything that would corrupt it. But we should not forget the fascinating fact that hereby also live 1/3 middle class of its population (Al Jazeera English, 2015).
See, inequality is every nation's problem. But even when we talk about inequality in Africa, there is always the other side of the coin to be concerned at. It should be not only poverty side, but also wealthy side to be put in discussion.
Indonesia, thanks to its long journey of relationship with Africa, must not be trapped in this narrow-minded standpoint. Instead, we should be able to gain much more lesson-learned of what our ancestors have achieved. We must read again our history book; to know that Indonesians had traded spices with Africans since 7th to 11th centuries and to recognize that the first country which acknowledge Indonesia independence is, indeed, the north Africa desert country, Egypt.
Even the very widely-known masterpiece, The Asia-Africa Conference, which six independent countries of Africa become participants, is still today on its way to stand against imperialism, colonialism, inequality, poverty and injustice all over the world. Those are real success story of Asia-Africa relation and with all those actual conditions of today Africa, all we have to do is to strengthen them, from this day on!
As we know, there were too many ceremonial events remembering The 1955 Asia-Africa Conference. Well, we need to commemorate it more essential, and in the same time, produce significant acts on behalf of the celebration. Indonesia, indeed, should be able to be do more, in order not to make The Asia-Africa Conference become nothing but history; just a dashing paper-statement, yet not quite impacted like automatic rifle with empty bullets to fire.
We may notice The 60th Anniversary in 2015 which become its purpose to make revitalization of Bandung Spirit. Following the event, there was established The New Asia-African Strategic Partnership with the 8 Focus Area of Cooperation with all those institutional support-based and private sector bodies. Of course, there are problems of implementation, as survey of Asia Africa Studies Center, University of Padjadjaran shows, spread in government, commercial and education sector, which Indonesia should be able to immediately tackle those down.
Now it is the time of the youth, the successors of our founding-fathers spectacular milestones, that should be followed up by policies in terms of Asia-Africa relation to face the same, even much more challenges in education, health, economy and many other sectors of development. It has already started, and it is not wise just to let them fade away, without any effort to settle great works, for the sake of better future Asia-Africa.
In these occasion, I send my regards to The Ministry of Foreign Affair of The Republic of Indonesia who has successfully held the "The Asia-Africa Relation" seminar on January 21th, 2015 in the very historical building of Asia-Africa Conference Museum with all the Excellencies speakers and distinguished guests that attending the magnificent event, so that we could manage to move one step forward concerning this great issue. Hopefully we can do much better in upcoming times.
Graduate Student of Magister Program Studi Pembangunan, Institut Teknologi Bandung
This article is a personal opinion and not on behalf of the institution.
