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b'Join Haymarket Books and Internationalism from Below for a discussion of the multiplying crises and the emergence of a new protest movement in Sri Lanka.\\n\\n***Please note: This discussion was recorded on May 16, 2022 and while the situation on the ground in Sri Lanka has changed, the background provided here remains indispensable.***\\n\\nInternationalism from Below (IfB) is a grassroots, all-volunteer network of socialist internationalists whose primary orientation is to support and popularize mass struggles from below of working and oppressed peoples throughout the world. IfB opposes all kinds of state and imperial violence, and aims to provide a positive alternative to the elements of the anti-war left that whitewashes the violence of repressive regimes.\\n\\nSince the beginning of the year, Sri Lanka has been facing its largest economic crisis since the country\\u2019s independence from Britain in 1948. Gotabaya Rajapaksa\\u2019s regime has defaulted on the foreign loans Sri Lanka has amassed over the years, especially sovereign bonds, and struggled to deal with the economic collapse triggered by multiple factors, including the collapse of tourism revenues with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sri Lanka\\u2019s currency, the rupee, is being rapidly devalued, while average citizens cannot afford basic necessities. Since March, protests have spread across the country, and the President\\u2019s cabinet except for the Prime Minister resigned. The Rajapaksa administration\\u2014which has spent the past several years attempting to consolidate power through authoritarian measures\\u2014has ignored the growing consequences of the economic crisis caused by the build up of foreign loan obligations.\\n\\nHow do we make sense of the different political visions and actors in the region in light of the growing contradictions of the neoliberal economy and the limitations of authoritarian regimes to manage the effects of crisis? How are the Sri Lankan mass protests providing a new political vision against the forces of debt-run globalization as they continue to decimate regions of the global South? How do we reckon with the movement\\u2019s limits\\u2014its complex relationship with Tamil self-determination, and the historical legacy of the electoral left\\u2019s betrayal of independent mass politics, among other factors?\\n\\nThis panel aims to provide an introduction to the situation in Sri Lanka today from left-wing perspectives, while contextualizing it in the region\\u2019s larger political and economic history and issues. The speakers will touch on topics like Sri Lanka\\u2019s political economy, local dynamics of racism and authoritarianism in blocking class politics, and grassroots feminist movements\\u2019 program and demands. \\n\\nSpeakers:\\n\\nDevaka Gunawardena is an independent researcher who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a general focus on political economy.\\n\\nRohini Hensman is a writer, researcher, and activist who comes from Sri Lanka and is resident in India and has written extensively on workers\\u2019 rights, feminism, minority rights, globalisation, and a Marxist approach to struggles for democracy. Her most recent books are Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism: Lessons from India and Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism. She has also written two novels: To Do Something Beautiful, inspired by her work with working-class women and trade unions in Bombay, and Playing Lions and Tigers, set in Sri Lanka.\\n\\nNiyanthini Kadirgamar is a Ph.D. student in Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is part of the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice.\\n\\nModerator:\\n\\nPromise Li is an activist and writer from Hong Kong and Los Angeles. He organizes international solidarity work with Internationalism from Below and Lausan Collective.\\n\\nWatch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/o4SE9pBf4JY\\n\\nBuy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org\\n\\nFollow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks'