Léopold met with Nadia Ben Youssef during the second Black and Palestinian Solidarity conference in Naarm (Melbourne) on Indigenous Wurundjeri land, organized by Gary Foley and Suzannah Henty in November 2019. In this conversation, Nadia recounts the history of the 1955 Bandung Conference through the perspective of her grand father, Tunisian revolutionary Salah Ben Youssef who was representing Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco in the fight against French colonialism. The discussion addresses the way the Bandung spirit was broken by France’s neocolonial strategies that manufactured new types of dependencies for former colonies in Africa. They conclude the conversation with considerations of what this Bandung spirit can develop in terms of solidarity in today’s struggles.
Nadia Ben-Youssef is the Advocacy Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She directs ...