To understand Anticlockwise, we must first understand what is meant by clockwise.

Clockwise is a term used to denote the direction in which the hands of a clock rotate around a central axis on a clock face. The origins of this direction stem from the creation of the first mechnical clocks in medeival Europe around the 14th century. Their design was derived from that of the sundial. Thus, the direction of the movement of the clock hand follows the direction of the movement of the shadow on a sundial. Hence, we have clockwise, and, defined in its opposition, anticlockwise.

This is pertinent, the defition through opposition reduces the meaning of anticlockwise to nothing more than anything that is not clockwise  – or, etymylogically, from the Greek: anything that is against clockwise. I view this reduction as quite presumptuous.

The reason for the clockwise movement of a shadow on a sundial face in medieval Europe is due to the continents positional relativity to the equator. From the perspective of Europe (or any location in the Northern hemisphere for that matter), the sun rises in the east, moves in an arc across the southern half of the sky, and sets in the west. However, and this is where things become interesting, from any vantage point within the southern hemisphere, the sun rises in the east, moves in an arc across the northern half of the sky, and sets in the west. Thus, as the shadow on a sundial in the northern hemisphere rotates in a clockwise fashion, that of a sundial in the southern hemisphere rotates in an anticlockwise fashion around the clockface.

This is the genesis of the Anticlockwise; simultaneously a metaphor for the Global South, post- and de-colonial thought, and an African-Futurism established through an alternate past.