BARBADOS PRIME Minister Mia Mottley delivered a masterclass – or more fittingly a sistaclass – in leadership on a visit to the UK.
Mottley met Lord Simon Woolley, the Principal of Homerton College, before delivering a blistering speech which called for reparatory justice for the enslavement of Africans.
Speaking at Oxfam’s annual lecture at the LSE this week (6 December) before a 500-strong audience of LSE alumni, Mottley also pledged to visit Homerton on her next trip to the UK.
The Barbados PM paid tribute to the fact that two of the three Black heads of house in Oxbridge colleges are of Bajan heritage: Lord Woolley and Sonita Alleyne at Jesus College at Cambridge.
She plans to visit all three colleges with a Black principal at the next opportunity.
Mottley spoke of the painful legacy of the enslavement of Africans, which she argues cannot be fully dealt with without reparatory justice.
She added that Western industrialisation, fuelled by the enslavement of Africans, is a major driver of the current climate crisis which is hitting the poorest countries the hardest, such as Caribbean islands at risk from rising sea levels.
Lord Woolley said: “ The PM, Mia Mottley’s leadership demands that wealthy states and wealthy individuals have honest conversations about how we got here and how we can get out.
“As she said, the broadest shoulders along with the greatest beneficiaries of slavery, colonialism, and the world order that it produced, pay their dues.
“Her motto is: ‘Share the burden, Share the bounty’. Her deep thinking on many of these issues that that this global conversation is not a; 'I win, you lose, but rather, ' I win, and we can all win.'
