Bandung is Tomorrow, When Jan and Irawan Join Hands
Speech by Peter Mertens, PVDA-PTB Secretary General, at the event in Brussels on April 30, 2025, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Asia-Africa conference in Bandung.
Dear friends,
Dear comrades,
I don’t think Irawan Soejono and Jan Maassen ever knew each other.
Yet they were both active in the Dutch resistance
against the German Nazi occupiers.
Irawan Soejono studied sociology at Leiden University.
He was a member of the progressive nationalist and anti-colonial organization Perhimpunan Indonesia, or PI for short.
When the Germans invaded the Netherlands, Irawan joined the resistance, like many other Indonesian students from the PI.
Irawan’s alias was “Henk van de Bevrijding”, or “Henk of the Liberation.”
His sister, Soetiasmi, also joined the resistance.
They helped people in hiding.
They distributed underground newspapers, such as De Bevrijding (The Liberation).
Their motto was clear: “First liberate the Netherlands, then liberate Indonesia.”
On January 13, 1945, Irawan Soejono was shot dead by the Nazis during a raid in Leiden.
The stencil machine he carried was just repaired and ready to print a new edition of De Bevrijding.
Irawan gave his life for the liberation of the Netherlands.
Indonesian students helped liberate the Netherlands.
Yet the Dutch bourgeoisie wanted to keep colonizing Indonesia.
When Japan surrendered in 1945, Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta proclaimed Indonesia’s independence.
Incidentally, Hatta had also studied in Leiden, like Irawan Soejono.
The Dutch elite reacted furiously to the declaration of independence.
In a final desperate act, the Dutch government sent tens of thousands of young men back to Indonesia.
Young men who had just fought against the Nazis.
Young men who had just fought against their own oppression, now dispatched far away to… suppress the freedom of another people.
Jan Maassen refused to comply.
Jan was an Amsterdam communist and had been in the resistance, like Irawan.
Jan refused on principle to oppress another people.
He refused to go to Indonesia.
He ended up in prison—ironically, in the same buildings where SS members had recently been imprisoned.
Those SS members received pardons.
Jan Maassen did not.
He lost his civil rights and never received rehabilitation.
Irawan Soejono and Jan Maassen.
The Indonesian student who helped liberate the Netherlands.
The Dutch worker who landed in prison for supporting Indonesia’s independence.
Two movements merging into one.
With Irawan and Jan, the mutinies of the South and North join hands.
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Ultimately, the Dutch and British had to give up the fight.
Indonesia became independent and free.
Like India and Pakistan in 1947.
Sri Lanka and Myanmar in 1949.
And China in 1949.
“Our nations and countries are no longer colonies.
We are now free.
Sovereign.
Independent.
We are once again masters in our own house.”
With these words, President Sukarno opened the Bandung Conference in Indonesia on April 18, 1955.
Bandung became a turning point.
A moment when the world order shifted.
Country after country broke free from the chains of European domination.
As Asia tore itself away from Europe, power shifted to the United States.
By dropping atomic bombs on Japan.
By waging war in Korea.
And later in Vietnam.
Against this backdrop, leaders from 29 countries gathered in Bandung.
For the first time, the Global South stood together.
Not as colonies, but as equals.
They challenged the racist, Eurocentric world order.
They inspired liberation movements in Algeria and Kenya.
They inspired Patrice Lumumba and Pierre Mulele in Congo.
They empowered the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Bandung was not just a diplomatic event.
Bandung was a movement, something fluid, something elusive.
A global quest for independence, for equality.
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We are now seventy years after Bandung.
Economic power is shifting to Asia.
Irawan went to study in Leiden. Perhaps today he would have gone to China,
where the most modern universities thrive and the greatest technological advances are made.
Or maybe Irawan would have stayed in Indonesia, which has since joined the BRICS, and studied at the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Bandung’s Technical University.
Who can say?
What is certain is that after five centuries of Western domination, the economic center of gravity has shifted to Asia.
And that makes a monumental difference.
We are no longer in 1955.
We are in 2025, the year of Deepseek, BYD, and India’s first planned manned spaceflight.
Never in its history has Washington faced such challenges, economically and technologically.
Hence the Trump regime is now dragging the world into a new Cold War, stoking hatred against China.
Just as they once tried to turn the world against the decolonization movement and the Spirit of Bandung.
But the world has changed.
From the Bandung Conference emerged a powerful movement: the Non-Aligned Movement, or NAM.
That movement was politically strong.
It had a clear, outspoken anti-imperialist program.
It knew what it stood for.
And what it fought against.
Economically, it was different.
Many of the newly independent nations still stood unsteadily on their feet.
And were kept small under unfair international rules.
Today, the picture is reversed.
Look at the BRICS countries.
They now organize to strengthen South-South trade.
And they are economically strong.
They possess resources, industry, and growing markets.
But politically, unity is far harder to find.
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I do not know if Irawan and Jan ever met.
Perhaps they meet today.
Perhaps today, Irawan is a Palestinian student on a campus organizing protests against the genocide in Gaza.
Perhaps Irawan is rescuing the honor of all democrats in Washington, Berlin, Brussels, and Paris.
Perhaps today, Jan is a young worker organizing trade union resistance against austerity and militarization.
Perhaps Jan is the young person who wants to throw open the windows in the class struggle of the North.
One thing is certain:
If Jan and Irawan join hands,
they are strong.
If they fight together for a world without exploitation and oppression,
a world as it should be,
a socialist world,
then the future is bright.
In the words of Sukarno, and I quote:
“Yes, we live in a world of fear.
But do not let fear guide you.
Let yourself be guided by hope.
By determination.
By ideals.
And yes, by dreams.”
End of the quote.
Some dreams are worth fighting for.
Bandung is tomorrow.