Marx analyzed the dynamics by which employers profit from workers' labor, predicting that this exploitation would inevitably spark a revolution. A logical conclusion, it would seem—yet most workers have not revolted over the past hundred years, nor are they revolting today. Marx also predicted that European societies with the highest proportion of workers, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, would move toward socialism. Yet they turned to fascism, while the socialist revolution took place in Russian society, which had a low proportion of workers.
This contradiction preoccupied the leader of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci. He spent his years in Mussolini's prisons analyzing it and concluded that authorities exercise not only coercive, material, violent hegemony but also cultural hegemony. They shape and propagate a system of values and beliefs that portrays reality as common sense—And once society comes to view reality as inescapable, it accepts it. If we realize that a class has imposed a system to exploit us, we realize that the solution lies in confronting that class and dismantling that system. But if we consider what is happening to be inevitable, why waste our energy trying to change it?
Societies in Palestine, the Global South and even the world are captive to the cultural hegemony of inevitabilities and the spirit of resignation it fosters. The colony is killing and expanding; Lebanon is powerless; Syria has gone from bad to worse; Iran was unable to stop the genocide—or did not even try; China and Russia, like the United States and Europe, pursue their own interests. Normalization is underway, society is sectarian, and decisions are imposed from above. With so many absolutes, how can there be hope?
But hope, too, is part of the hegemony of inevitabilities. "Right will prevail"; "nothing can uproot the indigenous"; and "the colony is gasping its last breath". As if Africa has never been enslaved, Turtle Island has never been genocided, and Palestine has never been occupied! The champions of inevitable victory seek reassurance: they recite verses about the victory of the faithful, seek desperate voices in the Hebrew media, soothe themselves in the accomplishments of the past. But hope has this in common with despair, that it locks us in inaction. If it is inevitable Palestine to be occupied, or to be liberated—note the verb: "liberated," as if the act of liberation happens on its own!—then why waste time and effort on the matter? In the presence of absolutes, why would there be action?
But a closer look at reality reveals something entirely different: that there are no inevitabilities at all.
Political decision-makers are fully aware of this, as they bear the burden of making choices in a world devoid of any inevitability. They realize that the systems presented to people as solid, cohesive blocs are the negotiated product of the contradictions among various interest groups—capitalist, identity-based, media, labor, and others. They realize that the balance of power among these conflicting blocs is in constant flux. They therefore realize that every choice is a gamble based on calculations and assessments of the balance of power and its possible shifts. Yes, those bearing the burden of decisions know there are no absolutes, even if they might suggest otherwise to get us to shift that burden to them.
Let us, then, examine reality as well. Take, for example, the most powerful political actor on the planet today: the United States. It defeated Nazi Germany and Japan, then the Soviet Union, and today imposes its language, currency, and rules on the planet, bombing whom it wills and capturing whom it wills. A colossal machine indeed. But colossal can be fragile. Economically speaking, the United States did not produce the value it needs to dominate the world—it borrowed it. A quarter of its debt (which exceeds its entire GDP) is owed to other countries. And the value of its currency is not based on production but on global acceptance—an acceptance it has worked to impose over decades, yet one that is fading today. The BRICS system, for example, is based on trade in local currencies, not the dollar. Iran threatened to use this weapon in March 2026 when it stipulated that those seeking to purchase oil through the Strait of Hormuz would need to pay for it in yuan or crypto. Furthermore, its bombing of Gulf facilities has created a rift between Gulf capitalists and their ruling families, prompting these regimes to consider withdrawing their investments—which amount to trillions of dollars—in the United States. The value of the dollar, like despair and hope, is an imaginary.
Militarily, a small technological edge—or even a single technological advance—could shift the military balance in favor of the United States' rivals or enemies. Moreover, its society is undergoing intense fragmentation. For example, a 2022 poll showed that nearly half of voters believe it is time for the United States to split in two based on views on abortion—a "two-state solution" modeled on the states. The logic of identities that colonialism weaponized to dismantle the societies it targeted is now returning to dismantle the societies it founded. A growing number of studies show that the American state is losing its legitimacy—that is, its raison d'être—in the eyes of its fractured society, where secessionist rhetoric is becoming commonplace. Added to all this is the United States' failure to counter China, which it acknowledged in its November 2025 "National Security Strategy", and the numerous risks associated with its new policies in this regard. Just as the Soviet giant fell suddenly, the American giant could fall as well.
This is by no means a cause for hope. The fragility of the United States, as an example of the fragility of existing systems around the world, is an argument for resisting the inevitability of defeat, not for submitting to the inevitability of victory. Moreover, "politics abhors a vacuum"; power relations do not fade away without being automatically replaced by other power relations. Therefore, recognizing the fragility of existing systems is a call to action—specifically, to organized action. Al-Sinwar and Al-Deif could not have unleashed the Al-Aqsa Flood without Hamas, nor could Netanyahu have carried out genocide and expansion without the Likud, nor could Sharaa have seized power without Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, nor could Trump, Putin or Xi have held the power they have without having joined political parties. Reality, then, is not inevitable; rather, it is the product of the balance of power among those who have organized to impose their agendas. We face a choice: either watch them decide our fate, or organize to sit at that negotiation table. Let us not surrender to despair or hope, but rather organize and act.
