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Bandung Conference Participants |
A musical critique of the major theoretical statements on “colonial discourse” and “post-colonialism.
In the 1950's, nationalism emerged as the primary expression of defiance to Western imperialism in a multitude of regions from the Indian subcontinent to Africa, to parts of Latin America and the Pacific Rim.
With the Bandung Conference (1955) and the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, many of Europe's former colonies banded together to form a common bloc, aligned with neither the advanced capitalist “First World” nor with the socialist “Second World.”
An exercise in political authoritarianism and economic failure, this music is a 'stare back', often literally, in the form of smirking faces making good on the titular promise of a failed lurking presence.
In this historical context, the category of “Third World music and literature” emerged, a category that has itself spawned a whole industry of scholarly and critical studies, particularly in the metropolitan West, but increasingly in the homelands of the Third World itself.