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 of America, China, Russia,
India
and European Union. As we all know the USA is the youngest among them, but
how did she become rival for hegemonic battle in this world? The USA does not have history of a concordances,
ruling like others, consequently where is the interest of the USA 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 weaken she needed
to find a strategic partner for further domination, and she found one in the USA. 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 USA
or EU it is as fragile as any other small country. Accordingly, we can say that
the UK
is being a very wise country who 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 USA
to conduct some sort of control among others while being well protected.
Therefore, we can say that the
USA is being naive 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, 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 like 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 last 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 Islamic countries led by Iran and Saudi Arabia,
Union of South America, stronger unity of African Union and eventually North
American Union led by USA. 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.