Majority World: Challenging the West's Rhetoric of Democracy

In the early 1990s, I began advocating for a new expression to represent what has formerly been known as the Third World. The term highlights the fact that we are indeed the majority of humankind. It also brings to sharp attention the anomaly that the Group of 8 countries—whose decisions affect majority of the world's peoples—represent a tiny fraction of humankind.The term majority world, now increasingly being used, challenges the West's rhetoric of democracy. It also defines the community in terms of what it has, rather than what it lacks. In time, the majority world will reaffirm its place in a world where the earth will again belong to the people who walk on it.