Amina Taylor | When Mia Mottley brought the heat to the global stage

It was a speech that was the very definition of the term ‘barnstorming’. Addressing a room stuffed to the brim with global leaders and influencers at COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Scotland, the prime minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley delivered an address that was passionate, forthright and bold.

Mottley not only announced her arrival on the global political stage with some aplomb, but advocated for the Caribbean and other nations of the global South in a manner that has perhaps been absent for some time.

Face to face with global decision-makers, Mottley said in part:

“What must we say to our people living on the front line in the Caribbean, in Africa, in Latin America, in the Pacific, when both ambition and, regrettably, some of the needed faces at Glasgow are not present? What excuse should we give for the failure? In the words of that Caribbean icon Eddy Grant: ‘Will they mourn us on the front line?’ When will we, as leaders across the world, address the pressing issues that are truly causing our people angst and worry, whether it is climate or whether it is vaccines? Simply put: when will leaders lead? Our people are watching and our people are taking note.”

As proud daughter of the Caribbean, this speech gave me chills, not because I got to see the answer to a question I didn’t even know I was asking (what would British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden look like if they were being told off by their favourite teacher?), but it gave me hope of a new kind of leadership; one that was not afraid of speaking truth to power.

PM Mottley, introducing herself on the global stage in such a bombastic fashion, highlighted not just her personal political star in orbit, but laid bare how rarely some of these uncomfortable conversations were being amplified on a worldwide stage. Had our leaders lost their voices?

I’m familiar with ‘wi likkle but wi tallawah’ as a Jamaican expression highlighting our propensity to bat above our weight, but it could so easily be adopted across the islands in raising our collective voices above our economic balance sheets and political prowess.

While the Caribbean has been the political breeding ground for strong voices in the past, for far too long many of our leaders have felt beholden to not just their former colonisers, but also incapable of being blunt with financial institutions and other global elite.

AT THE FOREFRONT

Prime Minister Mottley has been at the forefront of this new movement to redress some of that balance.

The very bold initiative to remove Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as head of state for Barbados and replace her with a democratically elected president is one such initiative that captured global headlines. Sections of the British press were almost sneering in their response (how dare this little island forget its lowly status?) but I ask you this; if the Queen being head of state is largely symbolic and ceremonial, why should the decision to remove her cause such outrage?

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the very powerful sometimes respond with overwhelming brutality to those who challenge the status quo – just ask Haiti, who dared fight France for its independence. Perhaps this is a nod to the shifting political sands, where countries from across the region, and indeed the diaspora, are now more aware than ever of their collective power and their ability to garner support from each other.

Irrespective of internal domestic trials, the importance of a united front is paramount. To a larger or lesser degree, countries in the Caribbean face variations of the same struggles and have to find commonality in the solutions.

Perhaps the cringe-inducing scenes of our leaders breaking metaphorical bread in 2019 at Mar-a-Lago with then US President Trump, as he tried to reinforce the divide-and-conquer strategy, can be a thing of the past. One commentator remarked, “My God, these guys might as well have brought kneepads.”

The new sense of what is possible with firmer voices pushing the discourse forward, might be encapsulated by the formalisation of a new frontier – Africa and the Caribbean joining forces. At the inaugural Africa-CARICOM Summit, held in September of this year, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta pledged that these nations were united by their heritage and would join forces “to strengthen the historical and cultural ties that bind us”.

Lofty aims, of course, but with leaders now feeling more emboldened to act in the best interest of their people, maybe unity is an idea whose time has come. If that fails, we might just have to send PM Mottley ‘round to have a word. As PM Johnson and President Biden will tell you, you really don’t want that heat.

Amina Taylor is a journalist and broadcaster. She is the former editor of Pride magazine and works as producer, presenter and correspondent with Press TV in London. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.