Neutralism Made Positive: Egyptian Anti-colonialism on the Road to Bandung

Many assessments of the trajectory of positive neutralism in Egypt have presented it as a foreign policy implemented in response to the Cold War context, and ineffective in the shadow of superpower rivalries. This contribution contends instead that positive neutralism developed out of the pursuit of a particular combination of foreign policy and nation building in Egypt, by elites whose political formation was dominated by an anti-colonial rather than Cold War consciousness. This is demonstrated through the analysis of three foreign policy episodes and parallel nation building programmes unfolding between 1952 and 1955. Together they illustrate the origins of positive neutralism in the positions taken by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers on the British presence in Egypt, on regional alliances and the Baghdad Pact, and on development and pan-Arabism in nation building, all before Egypt's participation in the 1955 Bandung Conference after which the policy of positive neutralism was formally adopted. The use of Egyptian documents throughout foregrounds Egyptian agency and motivations in drawing up policy, and enables an evaluation of the contributions of positive neutralism identified in Egypt at the time.     

Decolonisation,dignity and development aid: a judicial education experience in Palestine

Abstract

Taking Palestine as the focus of inquiry, and drawing on our experiences as co-directors of Karamah, a judicial education initiative focused on dignity, we reflect on the attributes of colonisation and the possibilities of decolonisation in Palestine through development aid. We conclude that decolonisation is possible even within development aid frameworks. We envision the current colonial condition in Palestine as a multi-faceted, complex and dynamic mesh that tightens and expands its control over the coveted colonial subject but that also contains holes that offer opportunities for resistance or refusal. We turn to Karamah to illustrate how some judges have insisted on a professional identity that merges the concepts of human dignity and self-determination and ultimately rejects the colonial condition inherent in both occupation and development aid. We conclude that in this process of professional identity (re)formation, members of the Palestinian judiciary have helped reveal the demands of decolonisation by demonstrating their commitment to realising human dignity through institutional power, and bringing occupation back into international development discourse.