I've just come across an issue of Time 100 magazine from a year ago (June 2022) featuring Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, on the cover. Why is she ranked among the 100 most influential personalities in the world, when her island is among the 15 smallest countries in the world?
Ever since her Barbados Labour Party swept all the seats in the 2019 elections, the Prime Minister has constantly thrust Barbados onto the international stage, and particularly, the United Nations stage. She has become the spokesperson for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and, more broadly, for what is now known as the ‘Global South’.
A former lawyer, she uses every international forum to plead passionately for her favorite causes. She advocates for more social justice (in commemoration of her ancestors enslaved under the British Empire, as she reminded us during International Labour Organisation conferences in Geneva); mitigating the consequences of climate change (her COP 26 Glasgow speech went viral ); a fairer global financial architecture as outlined in the Bridgetown Initiative 2.0; improved care for mental health and non-communicable diseases (see our June 2023 chronicle); and, for combatting Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) in her capacity as Chairperson of the Global Leaders Group on AMR.
Charismatic and a brilliant orator, she doesn't read her speeches, she declaims them, engaging her audience with her gaze, gestures… and by provocation; "If we can send men to the moon or find a solution to the complex problem of baldness, then we are capable of solving simple problems, like poverty or the issue of our burning world."
At the June 2022 Summit of the Americas presided over by Anthony Blinken in Los Angeles, she began her speech by quoting a Bob Marley song, "There is so much trouble in the world," to which the American Secretary of State responded, "No, woman, no cry" (see attached video).
With the makings of a great head of state, truly committed to a better world, and with her deep voice, "She wakes everyone up," according to some analysts. And rumor has it that she’s after the position of Secretary General of the United Nations. Watch this space!
Author: Jihane Sfeir
English Translation by Joy Lewis (https://www.aaatranslationservicesbb.com/en/