A Third Way in the Third World: Malaya, Afro-Asia, and the Congo Crisis
Speaker: Muhammad Suhail Bin Mohamed Yazid, Fellow, Harvard University Asia Center
Moderator: Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Harvard University
Registration appreciated for planning purpose.
Abstract: In 1960, the newly independent government of the former Belgian Congo was on the brink of collapse. As Belgium launched a colonial re-occupation to protect its citizens and mining interests, the United Nations responded by deploying a peacekeeping force, the Opération des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC), at the request of Congolese leaders to help restore sovereignty. Malaya, also a newly independent European ex-colony, was one of many nations which sent men and materiel to the Congo as part of the ONUC. Why did this Southeast Asian country participate in a military (mis)adventure thousands of miles away? This talk opens a conversation about Malayan involvement in the Congo. It explores the idea of peacekeeping as a form of worldmaking which sought to uphold sovereign equality between states in the global age of decolonization. Malayan participation in the ONUC was important to project the country’s sovereignty and its specific brand of anticommunist ‘Third Worldism’ that set it apart from the posturing of other prominent leaders of Afro-Asia like Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser. Yet, this episode consolidated uneven power relations in the national and international realms. It not only affirmed civilizational prejudices Malayans held towards Africans but also exposed the ways internationalism consolidated inequalities in postcolonial society back home. The historical significance of Malayan boots on Congolese soil reveals the intersections of worldmaking and nation-building, the fractured character of the emerging Global South, and the contradictions within the liberal international order.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center; Southeast Asia Initiative; and the Center for African Studies, Harvard University