We all love Greta Thunberg, some for different reasons. But some of us worry about her.
The autobiographical Scenes from the Heart (“Scener från Hjärtat,” 2018) by Melana Ernman, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s mother, recounts the medical difficulties and the events that led to Greta Thunberg’s now-famous “school strike for climate,” in which hundreds of thousands of children have refused to attend school to protest about government inaction over climate change.
Greta is eleven years old and has gone two months without eating. Her heart rate and blood pressure show clear signs of starvation. She has stopped speaking to anyone but her parents and younger sister, Beata. After years of depression, eating disorders, and anxiety attacks, she finally receives a medical diagnosis: Asperger’s syndrome, high-functioning autism, and OCD. She also suffers from selective mutism—which explains why she sometimes can’t speak to anyone outside her closest family. When she wants to tell a climate researcher that she plans a school strike on behalf of the environment, she speaks through her father.
Greta herself strikes every Friday and spent three weeks sitting outside the Swedish Parliament at the beginning of the school year.
It is a story of “a family in crisis and a planet in crisis”—two phenomena that are presented as linked. The book notes that the oppression of women, minorities, and people with disabilities stem from the same overarching root problem as climate change: an unsustainable way of life. The family’s private crisis and the global climate crisis are simply symptoms of the same systemic disorder.
Greta’s sister Beata, who was 12 when the book was written, also lives with ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome, and OCD. She is prone to sudden outbursts of anger, during which she screams obscenities at her mother. What would normally be a 10-minute walk to dance class takes almost an hour because Beata insists on walking with her left foot in front, refuses to step on certain parts of the sidewalk, and demands that her mother walk the same way. She also insists that her mother wait outside during class—she isn’t allowed to move, even to go to the bathroom. The child still ends up weeping in her mother’s arms.
Like many parents of children with similar diagnoses, Greta and Beata’s parents fight hard for their daughters to receive the right care and assistance in school. When Greta refuses to eat they do everything they can to save her from starving herself. Her father begs their doctor to save Beata from whatever it is that plagues her.
It has been less than a year since Scenes from the Heart was published and, during that time, Greta has become a global celebrity. This week, she was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time Magazine. She has briefly met the Pope, who encouraged her to “Keep doing what you’re doing.” She has received numerous awards, including, most recently, the German Golden Camera award. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She has been featured and interviewed in most of the world’s leading media. She has appeared on a panel with the UN Secretary General António Guterres, addressed the European Parliament, and lunched with the Financial Times.
But it this really appropriate?
In Scenes from the Heart, when Greta eventually starts eating again, she only allows herself certain foods. Her mother has to prepare the same food every day for Greta to bring to school and keep in the school refrigerator: pancakes filled with rice. Greta will eat them only if there is no sticker with her name on the container: stickers, paper, and newspapers trigger Greta’s OCD against eating.
“I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” Greta said when she addressed the world’s leaders in Davos.
Given the child’s history of precisely that—fear and panic—the adult response should perhaps not be “You go, girl” (the words of Madeleine Albright when she was asked what she thinks of Greta’s school strike), but something considerably more cautious and reflective.
Greta was recently named ”Woman of the Year” by a Swedish newspaper. But she is not a woman, she is a child. Is it time we stopped to ask if we are using her, failing her, and even sacrificing her, for a movement?
Many things come to mind here, in fact, a myriad of them.
And let me say that on one level, perhaps the most important level when it comes to this poor little confused girl that yes, we all do love, because being caring, compassionate people, how could we not, I speak as a grandfather in here, and this story of the life of young Greta and her sister truly makes me sick to my stomach with respect to the damn poor parenting that she has had to endure as a young child in socialist Sweden.
I don’t know about anywhere else, but if what was described in the book were happening in New York State, as opposed to socialist Sweden, where they obviously have some very serious child-rearing issues if what is described in the book is true, as opposed to hype to sell the book, Child Protective Services would have been at the Thunberg’s door backed up by the state police to remove Greta and Beata from that poorly-run household, to get them somewhere where they would be much better off.
But is any of it true?
Or is it all made up by the clever mind of millionaire movie producer and former child actor Svante Thunberg, who well could be the subject of a book entitled “PIMPING GRETA AND BEATA FOR PROFIT!”
Like everyone else in the world, having heard so much about this young woman and how her Asberger’s Syndrome has made her the smartest person on the face of the planet, I have become curious about her, and since there are now literal volumes written about this young woman, including a Wiki page of all her many quotes such as “I mean, we are striking to disrupt the system,” and “(Y)oung people must hold older generations accountable for the mess they have created,” and this gem, given that she is the daughter of idle-rich millionaires, “(W)e are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money,” I have been studying every word of hers that I can find, and what is disturbing is that like with all legends, which young Greta has now become, a mere child who is not afraid to tell off the entire world and hold billions of people on the face of the planet accountable for stealing her dreams and her childhood, as if it were really all about Greta, and nobody else, there now appear to be not one, but perhaps three different foundation myths concerning when Greta became a climate activist, and why.
More disturbing are inconsistencies in what Greta says every day.
Case in point is a Washington Post article entitled “A Fox News guest called Greta Thunberg ‘mentally ill.’ The network apologized for the ‘disgraceful’ comment” by Allyson Chiu on 24 September 2019, where we were presented as follows:
The 16-year-old has been open about being diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, embracing it as her “superpower.”
Thunberg has called the condition a “gift” and credited it with sparking her activism.
“Some people mock me for my diagnosis.”
“But Asperger is not a disease, it’s a gift.”
“People also say that since I have Asperger I couldn’t possibly have put myself in this position.”
“But that’s exactly why I did this,” she wrote on Facebook in February.
“Because if I would have been ‘normal’ and social I would have organized myself in an organisation, or started an organisation by myself.”
“But since I am not that good at socializing I did this instead.”
end quotes
Not that good at socializing?
How about this from a Marketwatch article entitled “Greta Thunberg says adults who deride her climate activism fear the demise of their worldview” by Associated Press published Sept. 27, 2019, to wit:
Thunberg told a crowd in Montreal it was moving to see people of all generations so passionate for a cause.
“I am very excited to be here and it is going to be very much fun today to once again stand together, people from all around the world for one common cause.”
end quotes
Call me old-fashioned and conservative, but by jink, that sure does sound to me like the little girl loves socializing.
In fact, she is having the time of her life socializing, and getting a free trip around the world as a celebrity surrounded by her adoring crowds while meeting with world leaders like Canada’s Justin Trudeau, and even getting a personal audience with Hussein Obama, who is said to have laid his entire length prostate in obeisance to the young Gloriana.
And she don’t like organizing?
Do tell.
So what about the article in The Guardian entitled “When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: ‘Hope is contagious’ – One is America’s youngest-ever congresswoman, the other a Swedish schoolgirl. Two of the most powerful voices on the climate speak for the first time” by Emma Brockes on Sat 29 Jun, 2019, to wit:
AOC: It’s such an honour to meet you!
GT: You, too!
AOC: Thank you.
I’m so excited to be having this conversation.
AOC: One of the things I’m interested in hearing from you is that often people say, “Don’t politicise young people.”
It’s almost a taboo.
That to have someone as young as you coming out in favour of political positions is manipulative or wrong.
I find it very condescending, as though, especially in this day and age with the access to information we have, you can’t form your own opinions and advocate for yourself.
I’m interested in how you approach that – if anyone brings that up with you?
GT: That happens all the time.
That’s basically all I hear.
The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on.
And I think that is so annoying!
I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?
But I’m sure you hear that a lot, too; that you’re too young and too inexperienced.
When I see all the hate you receive for that, I honestly can’t believe how you manage to stay so strong.
AOC: What is the most effective tactic in gaining attention for the environmental movement?
What have you done, or what have been the practices that have been most galvanising?
GT: I think this whole movement in which I just sat down in front of the parliament, alone – I think that had a huge impact, because people saw it and were moved, and became emotional.
Millions of children around the world, striking and saying, “Why should we study for a future that may not exist any more?”
This is not only me, but everyone in the movement.
end quotes
The little girl with Asberger’s can’t do organizing because she has Asberger’s?
Then what is it that she and AOC are doing there, talking about how Greta used her organizing skills to organize her world-wide movement?
Something does not seem to be adding up here.
And if Greta did not have a millionaire movie-maker father as her press agent, who incidentally makes our own political impresario Lanny Davis, who I admit I talked up as the impresario of all impresarios, look like a bumbling hack, would she have ever been able to have a personal appearance before our United States Congress, given that she is not an American citizen, and would Hussein Obama and AOC have paid her the time of day?
Would she have been able to appear before the UN to screech at them as she did for stealing her dreams and her childhood?
One must truly wonder.