On November 18, a conference on counter-hegemony was held in an online format. Event was organized by “International Eurasian Movement” and many interesting speakers participated and we provide some short excerpts from their presentations:
The speaker Alexander Dugin from Russia presented a presentation about counter-Hegemony in the international Context, where he agrees with the logical explanation of events and believes that Gramshi was much more correct than Soviet marxists. The professor also states that inside granshism there is a very interesting challenge, which is developing the concept of hegemony. However, what is important, nowadays neither left or right Gramshism are enough, because they have lost their cause in the sense of a geopolitical basis. In conclusion, the current hegemony uses both right and left, manipulates them in order to put them against each other.
The speaker Leonid Savin from Russia presented a presentation about hegemony under Lens of different Theories, where Leonid speaks about a couple scholars, who distinguish hegemony types in different ways. The first (Heinrich Triepel) believes that hegemony is a form of power created between simple influence and dominance. Types of hegemony: endogenous and heterogeneous, where the second is always more difficult. In addition, there is egoistic and altruistic hegemony. In egoistic hegemony egocentric motives are dominant, whereas in altruistic everything is balanced. Another scholar (William Robertson) believes that there are different types of hegemony, which have impacted on the global capitalist system throughout the past. This includes international domination, state hegemony, consensual domination and so on… The state combining all types of hegemony can become undisputed hegemony. There are also many other points of view on this case.
The speaker Spyros Marchetos from Greece presented a presentation about a New Right or a New Left Answer to Failing Liberalism, where he connects an analysis with the rising counter hegemony of Europe to the 2020 situation. Because of the pandemic crisis international tensions worsen, thus stretching internal and external systems. This influences current political projects, which are designed mainly in conservative and liberal directions. The right does not have any counter hegemony projects and does not strive to create one, in comparison with the left. The general picture is that the right formations today are more supportive of the rights and freedoms than the left. It is fortunate that the pandemic gives a new chance for the left and right. The events during the pandemic prove that many liberal policies have been put aside. The final issue is the distinction between the left and right, many people believe that it does not exist, but according to the speaker that is not serious. They have different values, different priorities.
The speaker Marco Ghisetti from Italy presented a presentation about the Island and the Continent: a Neo-Classical Approach to Counter-Hegemony, where he disputes about the neo-classical approach as the classic geopolitics, which is the way the classic order of contemporary geopolitics have understood the struggle for power and because the way they understood that allows us to grasp the modern condition upon which the counter hegemonic struggle develops itself. Geo-politics is first of all a discipline that studies the way a political factor is influenced by the geographical factor. Very importantly it studies the way that the political factor interprets the space it’s surrounded by. This is why the way a person understands his surroundings is the way it influences his actions. The neo-classical approach to counter-hegemony is useful, because it states about the USA’s power and the need for integration and unification for all of Eurasia.
The speaker Andre-Hans von Bremen from Belgium presented a presentation about the Nordlandia Trilogy, where he talks about a project, which concerns Northern Europe, based on local history and local culture. The Nordlandia trilogy is the way to the reconquista of Hanseatic Nordeuropa from Bruges to Novgorod. Influences by the success of the Japanese trilogy Soka Gaaki, AHvB created the holistic Pan-Nordic ideology of the Nordlandia trilogy, including historical roots with a pro-Hanseartic renaissance concept, economic vision with the Rhineland model and Mondragon, culture with the solar tradition of Gotland’s seminar. The Rhineland model created by the French in 1991 after the failure of communism. Albert Michel promoted a constructive capitalism with a long term vision and a real social dimension, which the speaker completely supports.
The speaker Evgeniy Balakin from Russia presented a presentation about the Bonfire of Mind, where he explains that the intelligent stands higher than the intelectual. Speaking about counter-hegemony, he specifies the need to mention the culture. Gramshi outlines two types of intellectuals: the organic one and the traditional. The differences between the organic and the traditional intellectuals is that the organic is the progressive one, who uses modern images and concepts, whereas the traditional keeps to the old and traditional system. When Gramshi writes about the traditional intellectual he understands him as a reactionary intellectual. That’s why the speaker wants to create another type of intellectual, which is a traditionalist intellectual. This type acts as an attacker on hegemony.
The speaker Celil Aktas from Turkey presented a presentation about the Revival of the Land Powers, where he states that the land powers are powers that rely on the abandoned sources of the lands. While sea powers are usually countries that don’t have abandoned sources on their land. For them the land was limited as well as the resources. Five values were established in the changing world, where India, China and most of Eurasia were the core of the world economy to change the problem above. Everyone had their own space for living and their own values, which include policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and connecting people. These are the goals of initiative. Especially with financial integration, more independent regions will overcome the global economy.
The speaker Andrey Zvorykin from Russia presented a presentation about Ernst Junger’s Archetypes as Manifestations of the Gramshi’s Figure of Intellectual, where he mentions that the main concepts of Junger’s philosophy are archetypes, some of which can be associated with Gramshi’s intellectuals. For example in the worker’s world every member of the society becomes a server of the technology, in which it is easy to see the Gramshi’s concept of Hegemony. However in the Worker’s world the intellectual became not an individ but an individual. According to Junger – every era has its own gestalt. One of which is the transition from workforce to the use of technologies. So the figure of the anarch, based on collective identities, is very close to the figure of radical subjects and the figure of traditionalists. Every country will make its own anarchy traditionalist intellectual, which can be the gestalt of the new era.
The speaker Goran Sumkoski from Macedonia presented his research about what will replace the failed neoliberal hegemony after its fruitless quest for alternative sources of legitimacy, where he points out that the global hegemony has been defeated, it has lost its legitimacy. All hegemony in the past was enforced by sword, but this time beyond the sword, also, by the self proclaimed values of the defeated neo-liberal hegemony, including personal freedom, economic well being, democracy and elections, due to all three self proclaimed principles being tarnished by the hegemony itself. In terms of theories of international relationships this comes close to theory of global hegemony. The speaker also states, that while he agrees, that left and right were distinguished in their previous classic sense, in the contemporary there is not that much policy space for the government, right of left, and both are forced to operate within the tight framework of the neoliberal policies.
The speaker Tobias Pfennig from Germany presented a presentation about the bigger Agenda for 2030, where he argues that the ruling class creates a common sense ideology to justify the social, political and economic status quo as natural, inevitable and beneficial for everyone. It manipulates the culture of that society so that the ruling class worldview becomes the worldview that is accepted by the culture’s norm. This can be achieved by the control of wealth, politics, media, which the ruling class has. In the end liberalization, globalism, capitalism are basically interchangeable and are no longer seen by the working class as hostile. They become the status quo that always existed and which will exist forever. The speaker believes that currently the world is experiencing a shift to a new hegemony due to the coronavirus. So a new world order will be established by the year 2030.
The speaker Jorge Capelan from Nicaragua presented a presentation about Counter-Hegemony/Multipolarity as seen by the peoples without history, where the speaker believes that counter-hegemony and hegemony are two sides of the same power and that the world needs to find a way to develop and leave poverty behind. The debates about the roots of socialism in Latin America are very old, well above 100 years. That being said, the confusion around the left movement today is huge, mostly because the world is on the verge of a civilizational crisis that impacts all countries. From the point of view of the third world: if the peripherals want to replace the globalist empire they need to agree on a set of issues and priorities, while respecting sovereignty and identity.
The speaker Bobana Anjelkovic from Serbia presented a presentation about Counter-Hegemony as Interim Phase Toward Rule of Multipolarity, where she quotes that “a soldier without political or ideological training is a potential criminal”, and this is why today the people are witnessing the very lack of based ideas and political concepts in the political west and they are influencing the entire world. What they present as an ideology is self acquired self imposed axiomatic political and ideological exceptionalism, which is not based on good roots or anything stable. So the line between a soldier and a criminal is crossed. The collective now comes openly with the lack of common sense, without precisely defined ideas and without political attitude. One of the most important thoughts of counter-hegemony should be to preserve or to return to the sovereignty of national states, which was taken away from them because of globalism. The return of sovereignty can be possible only with a very wide consent of the society.
The event turned out to be instructive and intriguing. Each topic was presented from a unique point of view, causing interest in other works of each of the participants. Overall the conference forms a better understanding of hegemony, related political processes and how they were affected by the coronavirus.