Sunday, November 11, 2007

The Ubiquitous Strength of America

It is too early to imagine a world without American hegemony!

For ages, criticising America has been a global pastime. And world over intelligentsia, media, leaders and global citizens have not only being indulging in it, whole heartedly, but have also left no stone unturned to do any injustice to it. What has been most amazing is the very fact that mere American criticism has given birth to an industry of thriving brands of personalities, books and organisations. No doubt, starting from their foreign policy and resultant engagements in Latin America, Middle East, West Asia and South Asia to their internal welfare policies such as health, racial discrimination etc to their stance on global green house emissions and more, no doubt the United States of America has given enough reasons to face this global hostility. And of these, the most battered had been the American capitalism and the resulting hegemony.

But then, what has been incredible is the manner in which the nation has always been a sounding board to every form of criticism, both outside and from within the country. It is an incredible feature knowing that historically how criticisms and dissents have been dealt with in an erstwhile imperialistic Europe, anarchical Middle East, totalitarian East Europe and China and communist Latin America. Not just this, irrespective of hostility in political and ideological philosophies, it is commendable, the manner in which America has able to maintain its status quo and support the world in some form or the other. Those who have been betting heavily on the formation of European Union and the emerging economies like India and China, to mitigate the American hegemony, should also realise that America has always played a big role in whatever these nations or group of nations are today. To get the perspective correct, it is imperative to realise that the US has a major role in the unprecedented growth that these economies are observing over the past decade, as almost 20% of whatever they produce is consumed by the US, alone. Not only in terms of consumption, America has also been by far the largest investor (in the form of FDI) in these economies, further pushing the unprecedented export led growth by firing the production. Over and above all this, it has opened the world of opportunities for the global citizens, who have been settling down in the US since past five decades.

No doubt there is a definite merit in doing all this yet leaving the political and ideological differences at bay. The biggest example in this league probably would be Venezuela. It is beyond any doubt that President Hugo Chavez has been the most popular leader in the entire Latin America (barring Fidel Castro) and had been the most vocal against the American hegemony. But then it cannot be discounted that his huge investments in the social sector have been primarily funded by the petro-dollars, again for which one of the largest buyers remains America!

As a matter of fact, challenging the American hegemony is too premature, as historically the world is unfamiliar of an existence without a super power and has never lived peacefully with multiple powers, and an alternative to America as a super power is a far cry, as of now!

Share/Bookmark

No comments:

Post a Comment