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The world in early 2026 stands at what may be an historical inflection point. Forces of hierarchy – rooted in centuries of imperial dominance, racialised power inequalities, elite networks of capital, military supremacy and intellectual-ideological control – are under direct, sustained challenge from counter-hegemonic resistance. This is not mere opposition or episodic protest; it is the active construction of parallel institutions, transnational networks of organic intellectuals, and coordinated political-economic action on a global scale.

Antonio Gramsci’s insights into hegemony – as consent manufactured through civil society institutions, intellectuals and cultural practices – and counter-hegemony – as a patient “war of position” to build alternative consent – provide the analytical lens. Amitav Acharya’s multiplex world order refined by critical multiplexity concepts describes the structural shift: no longer a single hegemonic script, but multiple overlapping “screens” where diverse powers, modernities, institutions and actors compete and coexist.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

Critical multiplexity, as theorised here, sharpens this by foregrounding enduring imperial legacies, power inequalities and the agency of subaltern forces. It reveals how hierarchies mutate and persist unless dismantled through people-centred blocs that prioritise dignity, international law enforcement and liberation over elite stabilisation.

Gaza as a zone of contention

This contest plays out vividly in the parallel architectures now contending over Palestine’s future amid Gaza’s ongoing devastation and the fragile 2025 ceasefire. On one side stands the elite-driven project of domination rebranded as peace; on the other, an insurgent, Global South-led and grassroots-supported effort to enforce accountability and sever complicity. An alliance across states, societies and cultures – North, South, East, West – against the global imperialist bloc led by the United States.

On February 19, 2026, US President Donald Trump convened the inaugural meeting of the (Orwellian) “Board of Peace” in Washington, DC, at the renamed Donald J. Trump United States Institute of........

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