The World Turns South

To our first readers,

There are more people, billions, living in the Global South than anywhere else on earth. And yet these magazines that explain the world to its readers do so with narratives that do not reflect the realities of our existence, our history, our development or our futures. Invariably, many of us were colonized and left with nothing yet somehow survived, under-developed. But the world is changing. It has been changing. And we intend to address the issues of our pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial realities.

This magazine is an attempt to correct that. We want to tell our stories with professional reporting, expert opinion and comments from Global South actors.

Why “new”. We in the Global South have been fighting other fights on many levels for our due global recognition. We have to keep the movement going. We do not claim to know everything about every country in the Global South and we invite commentators to share. Our time is now — hence the word “new”: a new movement for reparations, a new movement for self-determination on our terms, designed by us and for our people. It is a claim about now. Countries that once only supplied raw materials are competing to refine them and to build the batteries, launch the satellites, run the cables and write the rules for moving money across borders. That shift is the most consequential story of this century and it is mostly covered as a footnote to somebody else’s economy.

The New Global South is built on four ideas and every issue is judged against them. Power, because we want to know who holds it, who brokers it and who ultimately pays for it. Memory, because on these pages the past is a live argument rather than a polite preface — reparations, restitution and return are current affairs, not history. Style, because fashion, design, music and food are serious cultural records and deserve to be covered with the same rigor as an election. And Possibility, because the South is building things — cities, companies, collections, space programs — and those deserve the same close attention we have always given its problems.

Six Issues, Six Conversations.

We take our time to deeply research, cover and investigate our articles and contributions from our experts. We are also open to printing your Letters to the Editor.

This first issue is called The World Turns South. Inside you will find China’s robotics and AI revolution and what it means for the countries buying the machines; India’s technological and strategic rise; the reparations debate and the African world that carries it; Latin America’s turn and what it costs; and the House of Boateng, as African style comes of age. There is also Destination Ghana and books, music and fashion sections we will keep alive with Global South creativity.

Thank you for being early. Being early is its own kind of endorsement and we do not take it lightly.

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