Daily Times

Famous Italian philosopher, Gramsci, gave us the concept of cultural hegemony, which is when one begins to accept the alien culture to be the best and begins to blame his own culture for something unacceptable. In the modern world of the 21st century, we are coming across new realities of life-shaping and reshaping our lives on many fronts. One of these fronts is the electronic front. This includes cell phones, computers, laptops, and other digital screens. Primarily these screens were meant to display some of the needed data and material for the user, but with time, these screens have become the source of controlling the user. This control is not only at the individual level but also at the collective level. People now depend primarily on communication, storing data, and sharing their knowledge and skills through these electronic gadgets. Still, while doing so, they forget that the applications they use in their day-to-day routines on these electronic machines share their data here and there and, sometimes, everywhere. In this way, these electronic spies of the world have become a tool in the hands of the capitalist, the imperialist, and the dark web to control people’s minds. The body would also be controlled and manipulated when a reason is held. Therefore, the time has come to realise that it is a modern ultra-high-tech colonisation of the world. There are big giants of this world, like Google and Microsoft, which provide not only hardware but also the software of this electronic industry, creating multiple uses and abuses of this industry.

This electronic world is responsible for creating a new colonisation (of mind) where the coloniser is sitting thousands of miles away.

On the one hand, if it has provided several benefits to the users and made their lives comfortable, and created a new world in which one can spend hours and hours, on the other hand, it has created an unwanted and unnecessary business in the lives of everyone. One of the offshoots of this electronic world is that those well-connected with the world have become isolated. In isolation, they are being controlled, manipulated, and used to promote any agenda that may be hidden behind these electronic screens. This electronic world, therefore, is responsible for creating a new colonisation that is the colonisation of the mind where the coloniser is sitting thousands of miles away and is using his electronic drones to secure victory on the less provided and less fed and struggling nations of the world. So far, the trade has been very successful, and the dividends are multiple, unending, and highly enriching but only to the manipulator. This electronic world has created less equality and more of a divide, and once the nations and the people are divided, it is straightforward to rule them mentally and physically.

The imperialist mind accompanied by the imperialist capitalist has gone a long way in increasing this colonisation, and consequently, this is cosmopolitan colonisation as well. The electronic world will not spare anyone, whether in the capitalist world or the poorer world. Nobody is spared. Everyone is controlled. So, Huxley’s “Brave New World” and “The Edible Woman” by Atwood gave a glimpse of the screens attached in the rooms, offices, and different places to look at, monitor, and exploit the movements of the people by some centrally controlled force has become true in this world of 21st century.

The screens have evolved with time, become beautifully attractive, and provide a platform for almost everyone to interact with these electronic screens. But whatever the case may be, these machines have evolved into the controlling intelligent devices of the ‘Brave-neo-World.’ Therefore, victory is on the part of these machines, and the conquered are the people who use them. A large section of people would try to return to the world without these electronic machines and claim their freedom and independence. Still, all their efforts go in vain because now the world is at the final frontiers of mental control, and there is no going back. The best advice is to use this electronic world to provide modern ways and means of creating resources and providing food, clothes, education, skills, and different technicalities for people to develop. These machines in the electronic world can be very effectively used to harness some of the sources and tap those hidden ones for the benefit of the poor and the needy without letting people spend much of their time just. Exploring the electronic world would not only turn the minds of the dark electronic web towards positivity, and the benefit may be for the uplift of the people and their upward mobility. This would indeed reduce the impact of mental colonisation’s harshness and increase the usability and benefits of such electronic gadgets and technology. Today, there is no going back; therefore, the need is to evolve such mays and means through which human beings benefit at a more significant level. Only then are one mentally prepared to use these things for the practical benefit of humanity, and there would be less loss at the front of mental colonisation.

The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson University, Multan. He can be reached at zeadogar @hotmail.com and Tweets at @Profzee