From Donald Trump’s attempted entry-ban on individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries, to continued violence in the Middle East, Russian authoritarianism and expansionism, and deepening economic inequality in the West – clearly, there are many causes for serious concern.

Millions of people are on the move. Entire populations are leaving their home countries to find a better life elsewhere. Globally, the number of displaced people is approximately 65 million. A fifth of the world’s population suffers from armed and systematic violence.

“History is back, with a vengeance,” states Jennifer Welsh in her 2016 CBC Massey Lecture, The Return of History: Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century.

To help us understand and address what is unfolding globally, the Salt Spring Forum hosts Jennifer Welsh, this Friday, March 24th at 7:30 PM at ArtSpring.

Welsh – who served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on the “Responsibility to Protect” – points out that the 21st century has seen the reappearance of trends and practices that many believed had been erased. These include attempts to annihilate ethnic and religious minorities, arbitrary executions, and the starvation of besieged populations.

In 1989, as the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall fell, American political commentator Francis Fukuyama predicted – in his famous essay The End of History – that the struggles of the past would be replaced by lasting peace and social equity.

History, however, did not end. Instead, it has returned – as Jennifer Welsh points out.

But while history is back, it is not over. Welsh reminds us that as individual citizens we must all take a more active role in the preservation and growth of our own liberal democratic society, which was not inevitable but was built.

Jennifer Welsh is Professor and Chair in International Relations at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. She is also a Fellow of Somerville College at the University of Oxford and co-founded the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.

She is a brilliant thinker—and this is a discussion you won’t want to miss!

Tickets are now SOLD OUT for this event.