ABSTRACT
This essay is an attempt to reinterpret the birth of European modernity in light of the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan and his Malay interpreter “Panglima Awang.” Given that this first circumnavigation was almost thwarted by the resistance of Lapulapu, a chief from the island of Mactan in present-day Philippines, the possibility arises of a reinterpretation of the rise of European modernity from the perspective of the “Malay world.” It is in this sense that the Bandung Conference, held in Indonesia in 1955, as well as its coming iterations, points to the future actualization and redemption of the forgotten “Malay” heroes, Lapulapu and Panglima Awang.
