Theme I. The Hegemonic Monomyth
The first theme of the book deep dives into the monomyth that has been imposed as an imperial-colonial project. I explore how the imposition an economic monomyth, emanating from the Eurocentric imperial-colonial project has devastated the planet in the ten chapters of this theme.
Deciphering the Past
Dangers of a Single Story
Epistemicide as Control
The Collapse of the Metanarrative
An Era of Discontinuity
The Liminal Space
Uncivilizing our Stories
The Tyranny of Technology
AI and the Age of Dissonance
Activating Exiled Capacities
I go on to discuss the various means of controlling the narrative practiced by the hegemony with a special focus on epistemicide——a crucial aspect of genocide and ethnic cleansing—where a deliberate attempt is made by the colonizer to eradicate the existence of the knowledge systems, works of art and scholarship, and all forms of history, learning, and sensemaking belonging to the colonized. Here, I explore how the decimation of cultures, rituals, and narratives play an important role in maintaining hegemonic control. This erasure of cultures has been an intrinsic part of colonization. And has led to tremendous loss of knowledge and wisdom. What we see as ‘normal’ and ‘the way it has always been’ is a carefully constructed reality built through violence, obliteration, suppression, imposition, ethnocide, ecocide, and epistemicide. I use examples from colonized nations to underscore this aspect of colonization and the fallacies it is built on.
I explore the collapse of this hegemonic monomyth into meaninglessness to the point where we are not only in the midst of a polycrisis but also a crisis of meaning making and in an age of profound dissonance. I postulate that this dissonance is deliberately designed by the hegemonic powers to keep people in a state of perpetual confusion through obfuscation, gaslighting, diffractions, and distractions. This keeps people not only discombobulated but also exhausted and benumbed from having to deal with a deluge of propaganda and misinformation. Confused people are easy to manipulate, polarize, and fragment so that the hegemony remains unchallenged and unfettered. However, this meta-narrative is collapsing on all fronts--economic, ecological, political, social, and spiritual—as a direct fallout of the hegemony premised on colonization and extraction, separation and supremacy, and power, profit, and privilege for a few.
I move on to how this dissonance is giving way to a liminal space where people across the globe—the hitherto delegitimized, unseen, and unheard voices—are refusing to concur with the hegemony’s narrative, standing in solidarity with the most vulnerable, creating communities of allyship, and marching in movements. These counter-hegemonic actions have always existed but now they are gaining force, coalescing and weaving different webs of alternatives. These webs of movements are offering visions outside of state-led and nation-driven machineries of power. Geopolitical analysts acknowledge that the unipolar world order led by the USA and supported by its vassal states is giving way to a multipolar world; I postulate that multipolarity is being further accompanied by pluriversality. Multipolarity doesn’t challenge the underlying monomyth of infinite growth but replaces a hegemonic power behemoth with many nodes existing in power differentials, measured by their economic growth.
Pluriversality is a decolonial vision of world beyond state machineries. It rises from the people and envisions a world where many worlds fit. This was initially articulated by the Zapatistas in their decolonial vision of a world during their protest on the day that NAFTA went into effect. I am trying to build on this with learnings from the works of writers like Boaventura de Santos, Walter Mignolo, Brand Reiter, Ashish Kothari, and many others. This is also supported by articles, books, social media threads, and posts from researchers, on the ground reporters, citizen journalists risking their all like those in Gaza, and other social observers. I claim no special insight or wisdom. I bear witness to the unfolding and reshaping of history, a scribe with a responsibility to be true to my observations.
I present their perspectives as direct counterpoints to the hegemonic universality of Western thoughts that has long dominated global discourses across all spectrum of subjects and topics. I argue that the monolithic understanding of reality propagated by Western thought is a fallacious imposition and has done irreparable harm to the planet and all sentient beings. I believe that the alternative visions and narratives can provide viable pathways for more equitable and regenerative futures. I firmly believe that the concept of a pluriverse is not merely a theoretical or academic notion; it is a powerful and radical vision advocating for the acknowledgement, recognition, and incorporation of diverse worldviews, epistemologies, and ontologies in our global understanding as we stand on the brink of a Change of Era as momentous as the Agricultural Revolution or the Industrial Revolution.