By Maria-Nefeli Andredaki,
I was a high school student when Greek traditional media began covering Greta Thunberg’s climate change demonstrations. At the same time, a lot of things were said about her among my peers and online users from all walks of life, ranging from admiration and appraisal to “go read a book and stay in school”. As of writing this article, Greta Thunberg has been deported to Paris, after being abducted by Israeli forces in international waters. As a sincere thank you for all her work, I wanted to look further into her activism and highlight her contributions to our world.
Greta Thunberg became aware of the consequences of climate change at a very young age, in 2011. This led in changes among her family members, such as turning her parents to veganism and the reduction of plane-traveling. In 2014 she suffered from mental health issues and was diagnosed as autistic. She has defined autism as her “superpower”, the motivation to persevere for environmental and social change. And how did she manage that? Well, in 2018, aged 15, she started protesting against the Swedish parliaments inaction to combat climate change and later, along with her school’s students, she created Fridays for Future, “a youth-led and -organized movement that began in August 2018, after 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and other young activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis. She posted what she was doing on Instagram and Twitter and it soon went viral.” Greta inspired hundreds of climate change protests worldwide at the time, including one in Athens, for which many students skipped school and gathered in Syntagma.
Greta has been invited to give many powerful speeches throughout her activism journey, with the most memorable being that in the UN Climate Action Summit. This is where she addressed her audience of UN leaders with the famous “How dare you?” and voiced many of the concerns our generation has for the sustainability of our future.
Apart from her environmental activism, she has also been outspoken about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she has supported Armenians against Azerbaijan’s crimes and she has also visited the Sahrawi refugee camp, highlighting Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara.
In the last few days, Greta Thunberg has been in the spotlight for another reason. She was part of a 12-member group that boarded the Madleen ship of the Freedom Floatilla Coalition, in order to bring a small amount of humanitarian aid, such as a small amount of flour and baby formula, to the occupied Gaza strip. The ship’s purpose was not only to break the siege; it was also demonstrate that there is still hope in humanity, that people are willing to put themselves in danger in order to save others from their suffering. The ship was intercepted in international waters by the Israeli forces, before reaching its destination and the crew was taken into custody.
Greta is currently in Paris while other members are reportedly still held in custody, awaiting trial. As a young person of almost the same age, I cannot help but admire and be grateful for her bravery, her strength and her desire for creating a better, just world for everyone. If there is a person we should be looking up to and following in their footsteps, it’s her.
References
- Greta Thunberg: Who is the climate activist and what has she achieved? BBC. Available here
- Greta Thunberg. Iowa State University. Available here
- What We Do. Fridays For Future. Available here
- Greta Thunberg calls for global solidarity with Western Sahara in powerful Instagram Post. Sahara Press Service. Available here
- Freedom Flotillas: A history of attempts to break Israel’s siege of Gaza. Al Jazeera. Available here
