The illusion of one sound

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By Fazal Saadi

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Revisiting Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks last week, I was struck by how uncannily relevant his theory of cultural hegemony remains today. His idea of hegemony—the way ruling classes shape their worldview into a single, market-friendly global culture so pervasive that alternatives become unthinkable — feels more urgent than ever, in an era of algorithmic conformity and curated connection. We are urged to mistake manufactured consensus for genuine unity. 

True culture, like true faith, is polyphonic—a chorus of voices, not a monologue from above. This struggle is not new. The Byzantine emperors and Orthodox patriarchs once sought to impose Greek as the sole sacred language of scripture, hoping to unify faith through linguistic control. Yet their effort to bind the divine to one voice fractured, proving that the human spirit resists enforced sameness.

We live in a world that increasingly speaks in “one sound.” From Hollywood blockbusters to TikTok feeds, from English textbooks to AI algorithms, the rhythm feels familiar everywhere. It is presented as progress and cosmopolitanism, yet this sameness hides imbalance. When one sound drowns out all others, diversity becomes invisible.

Gramsci warns that cultural hegemony occurs when one worldview presents itself as universal, forcing others to adapt or risk invisibility. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie makes a similar point in her idea of “the danger of a single story.” A single story, she explains, may comfort us with unity but it flattens human experience and erases complexity. The same is true of a single sound, whether it comes from global culture, national politics, or within communities themselves.

English has become the “neutral” global language of commerce, science, and diplomacy. It opens doors but sidelines indigenous languages and knowledge systems, especially in postcolonial societies. In education, Shakespeare, Locke and Darwin remain central, while Asian, African and Latin American thinkers are pushed to the margins. Hollywood, Netflix and K-pop dominate markets, leaving little room for fragile local cinemas or oral traditions. Even international governance often speaks in the voice of the imperial centres, whether through the IMF, the UN Security Council or climate negotiations.

Cultural dominance is no longer only Western. South Korea’s K-pop, India’s Bollywood and China’s platforms like TikTok now project their own influence, but often in the same hegemonic way. These industries circulate widely and overshadow smaller traditions. The result is a multipolar but still unequal cultural order. 

Without conscious decolonisation of data and design, AI risks becoming the newest frontier of cultural hegemony.

Artificial intelligence adds a new layer to this picture. Most AI is trained primarily on English-language and Western-dominated data, reinforcing certain languages and knowledge systems. Algorithms promote what is already popular while burying smaller voices. AI development remains concentrated in the United States and China, with Europe as a regulatory hub, leaving the postcolonial societies in the South as consumers, not creators. Without conscious decolonisation of data and design, AI risks becoming the newest frontier of cultural hegemony.

This is the paradox of globalisation. It promises connection but often delivers sameness. Benedict Anderson’s idea of imagined communities helps explain why. Communities are held together not by face-to-face interaction but by shared stories, media, and symbols. The real question is who defines those stories, whose histories are remembered, and whose voices are amplified. These choices determine who belongs and whose presence is marginal.

In Pakistan’s context, for over seven decades, the state has promoted the ideology of the Ummah and Pan-Islamism through the curriculum, media, and religious institutions—a vision of monolithic faith and nationalism advanced by figures like Iqbal and Jamaluddin Afghani. It has fragmented society on sectarian and ethnic lines. 

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The ruling elite, tied to imperial interests, used the “One Nation, One Ummah” myth to suppress cultural diversity and conceal class conflict. By privileging the majority’s interpretation of Islam, the state marginalised other Muslim traditions, fuelling sectarianism rather than harmony. 

The ruling elite, tied to imperial interests, used the “One Nation, One Ummah” myth to suppress cultural diversity and conceal class conflict.

At the same time, the imposition of this monolithic identity denied the cultural and political rights of Bengalis, Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns, Kashmiris and the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. Instead of producing unity, it created discord among sub-national identities while masking the exploitation of workers and peasants across these regions. 

What appeared as religious solidarity in fact diverted the working class from its real struggles against the imperialist control of the politics and economy, the dictatorial regimes, allowing the elite to protect their dominance and preventing the growth of a united, class-based movement.

The same dynamics unfold within smaller communities as well. The Ismaili community, present in more than twenty-five countries, offers a revealing microcosm. A recent campaign titled “One Jamaat, One Sound” was circulated on social media from Gilgit-Baltistan to North America, promoting the ideal of unity. Yet it risked reinforcing cultural dominance by elevating a single musical style—often associated with the community’s more affluent groups and traditions—as the universal expression of faith. 

When elites frame unity as sameness, they erase the realities of inequality

Adichie’s warning about the single story captures the risk here. When a community projects one cultural expression as universal, difference is erased. What appears as unity may in fact silence the very voices that give a community its richness. The question is not whether unity matters but who defines it and why. When elites frame unity as sameness, they erase the realities of inequality — for example, between an Ismaili millionaire in Toronto and a farmer in Chitral. For Ismailis, a richer vision would not be “One Jamaat, One Sound” but “Many Jamaats, Many Sounds, and One Imam” — recognising diversity as a strength rather than a weakness. Capitalist globalisation is the ultimate “One Sound” project. Appeals to a “world community” often mask the domination of Western finance, language and culture. This is not internationalism but cultural homogenisation and colonisation, producing a compliant workforce. Real internationalism would be a choir of distinct voices — each rooted in its own struggle, yet united in justice and liberation.

This is why decolonisation matters. It does not mean rejecting shared institutions but asking whose voices history has centred and whose it has silenced. Gramsci showed how dominance feels natural, Anderson how belonging is constructed, and Adichie how single stories erase complexity. Decolonisation means rewriting these narratives so that many voices, not one, define the whole.

The illusion of one sound, whether from Washington, Hollywood, AI algorithms or local elites, repeats the colonial mistake of mistaking dominance for universality. True decolonisation reimagines unity not as sameness but as harmony in diversity. Only then can many voices shape one world.