Decline of American Macro-Narratives Inevitable: Author

During the preliminary meeting of the 2nd International Conference on “the Decline of the United States: The Post-American World”, Hujjat al-Islam Dr. Mohammad Ali Ranjbar predicted the inevitability of the decline of American macro-narratives, stressing that today the embellished slogan of the American dream has become an American nightmare.

“We must take advantage of this opportunity and using the micro-narratives, explain our macro narrative and then, try to establish it,” he said.

Inevitability of The Decline of American Macro-Narratives

Hojjat-ul-Islam Dr. Mohammad Ali Ranjbar talked about the collapse of American macro-narratives in the virtual world during the 4th meeting on “Cyberspace Capacities in the Post-American Era” from a series of preliminary meetings of the 2nd International Conference on “the Decline of the United States: The Post-American World”, which was held at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute (RA) in the holy city of Qom that was attended by a group of experts and researchers.

“Americans have set an agenda for two American discourses; one for the society of America, and the other for explaining the America for the international community, and they have used the macro-narratives to express this discourse,” Dr. Ranjbar added.

Referring to the decline and imminent collapse of American macro-narratives in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and especially in recent years and considered them as an opportunity to introduce Islamic and revolutionary macro-narrative, then, he continued: “These macro-narratives have now collapsed in cyberspace and media. And this provides an opportunity for us to define our own macro-narrative in the age of the collapse of American narratives, and to use micro-narratives in cyberspace for consolidating our macro-narratives.”

Ranjbar stated that the Americans have made macro narratives of a world with the presence of the Americans and a world without their presence; adding that they have also made macro narratives of the Middle East with the presence of the United States and the Middle East without their presence. Then, he said, they have explained and established these narratives for years, while this is an embellished lie and an unrealistic statement of the nature of America.

Ranjbar stated that in the macro-narratives, the United States considers itself completely freedom- seeking, egalitarian, and just, providing equal opportunities for all. They present the America as a utopia and the savior of human beings; On the other hand, the opposite discourse is introduced as an obstacle to happiness and well-being of the people. In all these years, they have tried to define and establish this unreal and decorated image in the public opinion of the society.

“America is a country with the highest number of police officers brought in to police the cities, especially after 9/11, and the Americans themselves have also conceded this,” Ranjbar said, adding that with God’s help, the big American narrative is now collapsing through the very virtual world they have provided for the people.

“In such an atmosphere, we should try to explicate the unadorned and untruthful reality of America domestically and globally, and if that happens, that macro-narrative will collapse,” he said.

Referring to the revelation of the unadorned reality of the United States in recent years, Hojjat-ul-Islam Ranjbar added: “A year and a half before the presidency of Trump used Eisenhower’s Military-Industry Complex warning, and then he was being objected to; and when he says such a thing, they remove him.”

“A few days before the inauguration of the President of the United States, his social media account was suspended and he and those around him were not allowed to create an account; and this is the macro-narrative of the United States, the the freest country in the world; American macro-narrative was completely destroyed by such actions. More than 25,000 uniformed troops were deployed to the US capitol, but in less than a few hours the Congress building was occupied; when these images are transmitted, the macro-narrative of America, a safe and free country, ends and the fact that America is a decorated lie is revealed,” he added.

American Dream Turns into an American Nightmare

Maintaining that the American dream has now become an American tragedy, Ranjbar continued: “American political disputes are oligarchic intra-capitalist disputes and in fact, ordinary people have no role in this debate. Today’s battle is between the digital oligarchy that owns virtual businesses and the traditional oligarchy led by Trump. This oligarchy which had introduced itself as the best republic and the best democracy for years, turned out to own 45 percent of the wealth in these years while it makes up just one percent of the society.”

“Approximately 9% of managers and justifiers like Mr. Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos own 40% of the world’s wealth. These managers try to justify the oligarchic dominance of that one percent and expand it. Their efforts of the oligarchs legitimize the 9% who own a significant portion of the world’s wealth. Someone like the German Kissinger becomes consultant to the National Security Council (NSC); another one wants to get an Oscar, and it is awarded to him, and at that time these justifiers of oligarchs played a role in consolidating the macro-narrative,” He added.

The importance of explaining the collapse of the American Dream to the people

Explaining that the bureaucratic function is for the survival of the oligarchy, Dr. Ranjbar continued: “The remaining 90% must share the remaining 15% of the wealth between them. This unequal pyramid is being explained and revealed, and the elites of the world and the American elites feel that they have been tricked; thus, we can make good use of this revealed fact in cyberspace today.”

The Collapse of the American Macro-Narrative of Security in the Middle East

Dr. Ranjbar, the author of Iran-US Cold War book, described another US macro-narrative that they will create security the region through their presence, and added although they claimed that the US presence would lead to comfort, peace, prosperity, development and progress, the reality showed that the order they created in the region just led to disorder in society. Afghanistan showed that these claims were nothing but lies and the Americans did not take any steps to build a nation in this country.

Emphasizing that in order to accelerate the decline of the United States in cyberspace, we need to tell true narratives of their nature, he said: “We need the embarrassing image of the Americans leaving Afghanistan, and Ayn al Asad, and also the image of the destruction of Global Hawk to show the claims that America is a superpower and it has hegemony are false.”

“They are, in fact, seeking to destabilize, while they are saying in cyberspace and in the media that they are seeking to stabilize. Therefore, we can use cyberspace to show that a region without the United States is a better region.”

“By creating the political, security, monetary, financial and cultural structures they wanted to show that they are the creators and preservers of world order; however, with incidents surrounding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the claim that they adhere to their own order and commitment found to be false. The Americans have failed to explain the true narrative of their internal, regional identity; We can use this opportunity to define the macro- narrative of our own, the macro-narrative of the America, Middle East and the world without American domination,” he concluded.

The 2nd International Conference on the Decline of the United States: The Post-American World will be held on November 2, 2021, by Imam Hussein Comprehensive University and the Secretariat of the Expediency Discernment Council, in cooperation with the universities and research institutes.

For more information, interested parties may see the conference website at www.usdecline.ir and the virtual pages of the conference secretariat on social media at @usdecline.