Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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The Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organisation "AAPSO" is celebrating its 50th anniversary. A three- day conference is organised on the occasion, as well as a photography exhibition. I had the honour and pleasure of witnessing the birth of this organisation in January 1958, and had followed its growth to become an important international force to be reckoned with. In fact, one can claim that it was the first NGO to be so successful launched. While AAPSO was created following the 1955 Bandung Afro-Asian governmental conference, it went beyond it. In fact the second Afro- Asian governmental conference, to be convened in Algeria never took place. That was the demise of the governmental movement.

Not so with AAPSO: since its inception it has held dozens of conferences and meetings in different countries in Africa and Asia. It was a movement by the people and for the people. The first AAPSO conference convened in Cairo December 1957- January 1958. That conference marked the beginning of a tremendous thrust forward. It was, as one political writer put it, "as if the flood gates had suddenly been opened."

Cairo became the capital of the movement and housed the Permanent Secretariat, which organised and directed the new Afro- Asian activity. The movement gradually broadened to include a wide number of activities on different fronts. In many ways AAPSO became an umbrella, which covered other movements. In October 1958, the conference of Afro- Asian writers took place in Tashkent, followed in December by the conference of the Afro-Asian chamber of commerce. Two months later, in February 1959, Cairo played midwife to the birth of the Afro-Asian Youth Movement. In the months and years that followed, other Afro-Asian movements saw the light, including that of lawyers, journalists and women.

On 11 April 1960, the second AAPSO conference was held in Conakry, Guinea. The president of Guinea, Ahmed Sekou Toure, had just refused to join the newly proposed French Commonwealth. I arrived in Conakry in October 1959 to coordinate preparations. We witnessed the havoc that French colonialists left behind. Everything was taken away, including telephones and typewriters. The Egyptian delegation was headed by Anwar El-Sadat, who at that time held the post of secretary- general of the Islamic Conference as well as of the Egyptian AAPSO committee. Over 500 delegates, observers and journalists from 49 countries attended the conference. The third conference was held in Moshi, Tanganyka in October 1963.

Looking through the resolutions of AAPSO conferences and meetings, one can see that the organisation has become a convenient forum for voicing anti-colonialist sentiments. This sentiment helped in fostering unity among Afro-Asian countries and guided the international solidarity movement with peoples of the ex-colonies. Thus, the anti-colonialism of Afro- Asian leaders was paramount in raising national awareness, while at the same time it was a genuine expression of rebellion and revolution against the injustice of the old colonial order.

The celebration of the 50th anniversary of AAPSO brings back many memories. It was the first time that leaders of African national liberation movements met together and coordinated their efforts. Following the first conference, Cairo became the seat of over 20 liberation movements. They were housed in a villa in Zamalek, which became the centre for coordinating the struggle for freedom throughout the African continent.