This attached PIMA Bulletin 18 sustains the theme ‘What is happening to democracy’ by means of a challenging paper from South Africa’s Mugabe Ratshikuni who asks, only slightly tongue in cheek, whether we really need it. We return to that subject in the next issue, and invite responses to both Mugabe and Chris Brooks. We will likely also return to the subject ‘What has happened to lifelong learning’ in the next issue, after a five-part discussion in previous issue (No. 17). Comments are welcome there also.

Two quite different categories of people are often and rightly seen as overlooked, badly treated and deprived, in a quest for social justice, access to resources for lifelong learning and good living, and full civic participation. They are indigenous communities, and the rising numbers of elderly people or ‘third agers’. This Bulletin returns again to the Canadian Province of British Columbia, probing deeper into the perception and treatment of the First Peoples of those lands, by political society generally and especially in terms of efforts made by universities. Earlier issues have featured the University of Victoria (UVic), and discussed the terms used to refer to this population. Here we hear more from three other universities, SFU, UBC and VIU, which together straddle a spectrum of university generations and types. 

There follow two items on older adults, as a prelude to the Special Interest Group (SIG) theme of Later Life Learning which will receive further coverage in the next issue. Alex Withnall refers to intergenerational war. What is interesting about her contribution is the concern that the third-age or baby boom generation, at least in the UK, are being seen not so much as deprived (which in many senses many still are) as more privileged than those who follow them. For the first time the generations that follow expect to be economically (and perhaps also in other senses?) worse off than their parents, something almost unprecedented in modern times. As so often, she points out, overlooking social class can seriously deceive.

News and views from two new members of PIMA address the problems and needs arising from the new phenomenon of mass tourism, and some aspects of international and intercultural collaboration and learning. They are followed by two by papers on lifelong learning and collaboration globally, in different International Organisation settings, both governmental and non-governmental (IGOs and INGOs), where mutually learning and gain are seen as deriving from sustainable cross-region and cross-cultural collaboration. Both themes will reappear in future Bulletins. 

We also introduce and warmly welcome seven new members of PIMA. Note their diverse backgrounds and arenas of practice, their great diversity of cultural and language origin, and a gender mix slightly favouring women. 

Finally - and unusually since the Bulletin normally leaves announcements of PASCAL (and others’) events to the PASCAL (and others’) websites – we provide a full introduction to the 15^thAnnual PASCAL Conference, to be held in the Republic of Korea at the end of August. This will assist readers to gain a sense of what is being planned, and to register promptly in order to take part. 

Please continue sending contributions for future issues to me at [email protected]