A 16 year old Swedish girl has been upsetting the world recently, turning things upside down wherever she goes, shaking the status quo and generating lots of publicity. She is called Greta Thunberg, has Asperger's syndrome, and has been making a nuisance of herself on the international stage, even at the United Nations... is she a pest, a hero or a misguided individual manipulated by the adults in her life for their own ends?
Greta has generated immense amounts of good publicity for the problem of global warming, for the case the scientists have been diligently researching, proving and promoting for the last few years; she has invented nothing, nor does she lay claim to anything of the sort. She is not a scientist and probably, as a 16-year old, is not deeply scientific, but she appears reasonably knowledgable. What she most certainly is is passionate - what her critics like to call disturbed - about what is happening to the environment of our planet and, unlike most children her age, she is actually doing something tangible about it in her own, perhaps naive, way. She is, after all, still a child - out of the mouths of babes - and this is obvious if only you care to look without your prejudice getting in the way, though her detractors find conspiracies, with concealed adults everywhere supposedly manipulating her and controlling everything. This all appears to be untrue, with most conspiracy theories debunked by those in the know (yes, she appears to write all her speeches by herself!), which doesn't seem to stop the emergence of new ones all the time - even a fake tie-up with good old George Soros has been attempted!
What I find remarkable in this little girl is her courage and willingness to stand up to the world and its leaders, grown-ups all, perhaps made easier by her Asperger's (her, as she says, superpower). A friend of mine said the other day that there was nothing courageous in what Greta is doing, that she is put up to it, that she is coaxed but I beg to differ - even if it were so, for a child, however passionate, to stand up (or in Greta's case sit down) and address world leaders in a foreign country takes great commitment and, yes, bravery! Remember school things where we had to get up and read things in front of everyone and how hard that was, anybody?
Greta is criticised for somehow not having done anything special herself other than not to go to school on Fridays, but in so doing the critics are missing the point entirely: this is not about Greta Thunberg or anything she has achieved, and she has laid claim to nothing for herself. Where is she at fault for promoting a message we need to hear, the whole world needs to hear? She is fighting to put across that message only, that our environment is in peril, that we are running out of time and that we should listen to the science; in this she is, quite literally, an angel, as the real meaning of the word in its original greek does not involved winged creatures, but rather simply means messenger.
Some dispute he's style, others her lack of knowledge or experience, more yet like to pretend she is part of some conspiracy - for what, pray? - with others pulling the strings. As far as I can see she is just a passionate young girl - yes inexperienced, yes awkward, yes imperfect - but in focussing on that we are blinding ourselves to this angel's message: do something about our world now, for tomorrow may be too late. It is a simple enough message which has nothing whatsoever to do with the person of Greta, so if you disagree please talk convincingly about that and not about her clothing, her presentation of her manner of speaking.
And do you know what? Should we fail to act soon, I don't think that the young should ever forgive us!
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