The UN’s annual general assembly is currently being held in New York, United States, and among the 193 speeches that we are given to hear, it is her speech that is looping on the networks. social: Mia Mottley, 55, and Prime Minister of Barbados since 2018, sees her speech go viral. It was Friday, September 24, in the middle of the day, like the others, her text was already ready, like the others, she had written it in advance, but when her turn arrived, she gave up reading it: “Si was using this speech, she says, that would be repeating, repeating everything you just heard, because we keep repeating the same things over and over again, and dear friends, we can’t do this anymore. “
At last, our world has a leader. She is Mia Motley, Prime Minister of Barbados, and * this * is a speech: pic.twitter.com/Xotc0qj9M5
– Ben Phillips (@ benphillips76) September 25, 2021
Without notes, improvising, she denounces the hypocrisy of speaking out, the lack of political will, and she lists the themes hastily noted on her phone before going up to the rostrum: the abandonment of her neighbor Haiti, victim of both a natural disaster and a political crisis, climate inaction too, while polluting countries do not respect their commitments to reduce CO2 emissions and limit global warming, health inequality finally and the imperative need to have vaccine patents free of rights and accessible to all: “CHow many deaths will we still need before the 1.7 billion doses in the possession of rich countries are shared with those who simply have no access to vaccination?“
And to quote, to end his speech the song Get Up, Stand up by Bob Marley: “who will stand up and hold on for the rights of the people, for those who died in this pandemic, for those who are dying of the climate crisis, for the small island states that need warming below 1.5 degrees to survive ?, Mia Mottley continues.
“If we can solve highly complex problems like sending people to the moon or balding men, we must be able to solve small problems like hunger and poverty.” “
Mia Mottleyat the UN platform
What the Prime Minister of Barbados, this is what the leaders of the richest countries do not want to hear, it points to their contempt, their short-termism, their inconsistency, their greed. Leaders who were not there when she spoke. There was no loud applause, nor an ovation. The room was half empty. On the other hand, on Twitter, his speech never ceases to be shared, repeated, praised for its freshness, its courage, and this in all languages, it exceeds two million views on Monday.