Globalization and the Rise of Extreme Nationalism: Lessons from Sri Lanka [F-19-26]

This course is for those interested in learning from the “Third World.” For the best part of over fifty years, Asia’s oldest democracy, Sri Lanka, has embarked on ethno-religious nationalism while weakening bourgeois democracy. In providing early warnings for Western nations, this lecture will lay out the common threads taking the world towards extreme nationalism through cul-de-sacs of beliefs that are destroying democratic institutions, not only in Sri Lanka, but also in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Jayantha Jayman is a teacher-scholar-practitioner with life experiences in the social democratic and free-market era of Ceylon/Sri Lanka, in the imperial and revolutionary Ethiopia, and also in the pre- and post- Reagan era in the USA, among other places. Being a witness to insurgency, famine and a pogrom, he is fortunate to have survived these and other experiences. He looks forward to sharing them with those who attend this talk. Jayman is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Global Studies Department at SLU.

NOTE: Presenter recommends that you follow world affairs beyond the US and Western news.

Cap: 40