By Ikhwanul Kiram Mashuri
All delegation of 120 states have just attended global summit in Tehran, Iran. They were allied in Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) or Harakah ‘Adamul Inhiyaz. Refering to its name, state members of NAM certainly intended to unite and not in favor to take side with any world power.
In other word, each member wanted to have “in the same boat” feeling. Move forward and step back together. Feel happy and sad together. Or borrowing Islamic narration, they were as though one body. If there was one part of the body hurt, then all parts of the body would feel the same pain.
That was what those five state leaders felt when they founded NAM in Bandung on 1955. They were President of Indonesian Soekarno, President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, President of Egypt Gamal Abdul Nasir, Prime Minister of India Pandid Jawaharlal Nehru, and leader of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah. Other countries that were in the same boat, especially the newly independent ones or in process of gaining their independence from colonialism, they all joined NAM.
During that time, world was controlled by two super powers, Western Block and Eastern Block. The Western Block was led by the United States represented the capitalist countries while the Eastern Block was controlled by Soviet Union and represented the communist/socialist countries. Each block was very aggressive and by any means tried to make other countries, especially countries in Asia, Africa, and South America to be under their controls. Conflicts and struggle for influence of these two powers which in history was called as Cold War.
The birth of NAM clearly was a grand and historical event. They tried to oppose world major hegemony which tends to be colonialist in other way and form. In the declaration of NAM, they emphasized that all countries and nations are equal. They have rights for independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security. They also opposed all kinds of imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, Zionism and racism.
But, over time, NAM was just a name. From summit to summit, what prominent was just internal conflicts and war of words.
Look at the last NAM Summit held for two days in Tehran. NAM countries which were supposed to be non-allied, they were making alliances instead. For example, the case of Israel’s occupation on the land of Palestine. In the NAM declaration was clearly stated this movement was against colonialism, Zionism, and racism. But the facts, NAM country members were making allies in groups.
There were countries which have not or yet admitted the independence of Palestine. There were 40 countries. Then, there were countries which had diplomatic relationships with Israel. While, Iran and its allies considered there was no space for Israel state in Middle East. For Iran, settlement of the Israeli occupation towards the Palestinian would never be succeeded through negotiation, but trough war.
Then, there were group of countries which promote the independence of Palestinian, but at the same time also admitted the existence of Israel state which live side by side. They – a number of Arab countries and also Indonesia – considered the solution to settle the misery of Palestinian was through peace talks with Israel and related parties.
What sadden was, because of the broad span of differences amongst the NAM countries, finally there were no profound results to support the independence of Palestinian. Neither war nor peace talks. At the same time, Israel kept expanding the settlements for Jewish in Palestine land freely. They were also brutally attacked Palestinian without protest from NAM countries.
The same thing happened when these NAM countries viewed the hostility of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against Syria’s people. According to Iran and his allies, President Assad was just a victim of high level conspiracy played by United States, Israel and Western countries. The aim was to overthrow Bassar al-Assad’s regime which against Western interests in Middle East all this time.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and the others viewed, Syria’s people revolt was a continuation of Arab Springs against the dictatorship and authoritarian leaders. This far, Arab people revolution has succeeded on overthrowing dictatorship regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zainal Abidin bin Ali in Tunisia, Muammar Kaddafi in Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen. Therefore, hostility against Syrian people must be settled by overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad.
Palestinian and hostility against Syrian people were just a few examples of how the NAM countries were no longer non-alliance, but more to making allies, whether alliance in internal of NAM or with other world power. Other issues which still viewed differently were Iran nuclear ownership.
Therefore, if there was no revitalization in NAM, I’m afraid this movement would one day just remain a name. Or, only as a war of words forum in every of its summit which only made this movement looked more fragile. My opinion, Indonesia as one of the founder must play a bigger role to regain NAM authority. Otherwise, this large country would only considered small by world society.
Translating: Indira Amiranti
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