It’s difficult enough to take a cynical look at a teenage superstar and harder still when the star’s social media page simply announces a “16 year old climate activist with Aspergers”. Grappling with such disability elicits much more goodwill from the community; Greta Thunberg has become the ‘Susan Boyle of Global Warming’.
Gifted teenagers are nothing new to society in the fields of science, mathematics and literature, but in the more visible, high-publicity and high earning fields of sport and entertainment they have to be handled carefully lest the resultant fame become ruinous. Often such youngsters’ careers are handled by parents who are assumed to have the teens’ interests closest to their own hearts. While some people may be disparaging of the juvenile success stories, especially if the performance genre or physical activity is not suited to the heckler’s personal taste, they generally get a smile, a wave and a ‘good on you’ by the community at large unless thrust into the limelight by politics.
We got a dose, earlier this year, of how much slack is cut for a teenager embroiled in political shenanigans, even if thrown into the arena unintentionally, in the case of 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann of Covington Catholic High School. His nervous grimace and every action, indeed micro-action, were thoroughly dissembled, discussed and distorted by the mob-rule media in unaffectionate (to say the least) terms. This included our very own rat-pack who excoriated the lad, abusing him, calling him the face of evil, uneducated, racist and bigoted before even attempting to grasp a simple, objective, factual view of what had transpired at the Lincoln Memorial that day. For days after the sober facts emerged, publishers in New Zealand still put the boot into the innocent young fellow like an out-of-control Jake ‘the Muss’ beating the daylight out of poor Beth. They loved it. I was disgusted.
So it with a sense of caution that I consider the political acts of Greta Thunberg, and the influence that her parents may have on her public profile.
In late June Greta walked into a recording studio to tape a message for a track on British band 1975’s new album. In that message she makes an extraordinary statement:
“We have to acknowledge that the older generations have failed. All political movements in their present form have failed.”
Whatever does she mean? She follows that up with:
“So, everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.”
Thunberg announced, in a tweet following the recording, that all proceeds from the piece would be donated to the far-Left ‘Extinction Rebellion’ movement, which is not nearly as controversial in New Zealand as it is in her homeland of Sweden. Doubling the indignation of her compatriots she included a photograph of herself wearing a top emblazoned with the extreme-Left ‘Antifa’ logo with the message.
The tweet provoked a storm of negative reactions. In Sweden Antifascistisk Aktion (or AFA) is widely known as an out-and-out criminal organisation involved in much violence. Extinction Rebellion’s Swedish subsidiary is led and heavily influenced by veteran AFA member Jonathon Pye, a convicted criminal sentenced to four years jail time for his part in attacking police during the Gothenburg riots, a man who advocates violence and reportedly would not ‘rule out’ killing to further his political cause.
Greta (very responsibly) realised her mistake and deleted the message. It’s what happened next that’s the intriguing part. Responding to her chastisement ‘Greta’ issued a new tweet which seems more defiant than apologetic, calling on one hand to forgive her naivety, but on the other offering a condescending and callous retort to her detractors:
Are those the authentic words of a ’16 year old climate activist’, or someone else projecting her voice?
“Apparently” suggests young Greta is not aware of Antifascistisk Aktion’s notorious public image. Is that really credible from such a politically-engaged young lady? A search of Swedish-language newspapers throws up a deluge of stories, over 1,200 of them, more than 200 from this year so far. Are we to simply assume Greta’s gullibility in implied but innocent endorsement of the violent extreme-Left?
“According to some” is simple condescension, as if it’s somehow in dispute, a minority view.
“Can be linked to violence” implies that a long stretch of the bow is required to come to such a conclusion, when the truth is quite the opposite.
Call me cynical, but I doubt the authenticity of the young lady’s response. Further driving my suspicion is the “expect me to know everything about a T-shirt” throwaway. I’ve had teenaged daughters, there’s not a thing of screen-printed fabric they would put on they didn’t endorse, but, at the risk of seeming mean-spirited, could I suggest Greta do what many teenagers do when attempting to understand the meaning of something beyond her years; she could simply ask her parents.
