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Hegemony
Ivan
Simic
Hegemony is the dominance of one group over
other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for
instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its
advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the
dominant group. The cultural control that hegemony asserts affects
commonplace patterns of thought: hegemony controls the way new ideas are
rejected or become naturalized in a process that subtly alters notions of
common sense in a given society.
Hegemony results in the empowerment of
certain cultural beliefs, values, and practices to the submersion and
partial exclusion of others. Hegemony influences the perspective of
mainstream history, as history is written by the victors for a congruent
readership. History has it that hegemony has been played since time
immemorial; we may recall the dominance of Persian, Roman, Mongol,
Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German, Chinese, Russian, French, British
Empire, amongst others.
These days, hegemony is played through the
international system by supreme powers such as the United States, China,
Russia, India and the European Union. As we all know the U.S. is the
youngest among them, but how did she become rival for hegemonic battle in
this world? The U.S. does not have history of a concordances, ruling like
others, consequently where is the interest of the U.S. in this
competition? The answer is in United Kingdom and more or less the State of
Israel.
The British Empire was one of the most
successful Empires in modern era; however, as she get weaker, she needed
to find a strategic partner for further domination, and she found one in
the U.S. Let us not forget that the UK is also a member of the EU, so we
can easily say that she is one of the most influential countries in the
world and it can be put next to above supreme powers, but without the U.S.
or the EU, it is as fragile as any other small country. Accordingly, we
can say that the UK is being a very wise country that gets its will
throughout in many ways.
The state of Israel is, on the other hand,
a small and weak state that is capable to do anything to protect itself
and create confusion in the world especially in the Middle East. By this,
we can see that Israel is using the U.S. to conduct some sort of control
among others while being well protected.
Therefore, we can say that the U.S. is
being naïve and inexperienced in that it allows itself to be used by
smaller countries to create order among nations, or maybe she is deceiving
us and learning to become an independent hegemon.
China, Russia and India are old and astute
countries, true world super powers, Countries that have history in a
concordances, ruling, and wars. So we can say that it is in their nature
to be dominant one. These three countries individually are strong enough
for any challenge in this hegemonic game of dominance.
The interest of European Union to dominate
others is reflected in countries well known as warriors and concordances
such as France, Germany, Spain, UK and Austria. Separately, they don't
stand any chance of supremacy over others, but together and with help of
others members of the Union they are one major player in the hegemonic
game. From this we can easily say that these countries are using other
members of the Union to gain more power in battle for the world's first
true superpower.
This modern race for world true hegemon
brought us numerous good and bad things; one of the good things was the
rapid development of technology, science, medicine, among other things.
Conversely, the increased competition succeeded in the manufacture and
development of lethal weapons, bombs and machines. As a result if we take
a look down history, society has not been able to develop so fast as it
has been in the past 60 years. Therefore we can say that from period of
World War II, the world has developed extremely fast and it continues to
develop. For this reason, one could not be more thankful to the
extraordinary dominance competition.
What can we then expect in the future when
we talk about domination among countries?
In the very near future, it is more likely
that more unions and alliances would be formed; bigger European Union led
by already mentioned countries, Union of Asian countries led by Russia,
China and India, Alliance of Arab countries led by Iran and Saudi Arabia,
Union of South America, stronger unity of African Union and eventually
North American Union led by U.S. After these Unions, we can expect even
bigger ones, but how they are going to transform themselves and stand the
test of time, is only a matter of time to decide. When these new Unions
form, we can foresee a new World order, and that will most likely lead us
to increased conflicts. Conflicts that will leave us in devastation and
sadness that cannot be described. The winners in that conflict will be
left with nothing to dominate.
Which side will the UK take in these
adventures? Well, it is up to her to start thinking about that.
When we take a look at the history of
mankind we can see that there has never been peace among nations, and it
is becoming increasingly elusive.
Ivan Simic
Belgrade, Serbia
Address: Paloticeva 12, 11000 Belgrade,
Serbia Tel: +381 63 7508500
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