Greta Thunberg first appeared in the media in the late summer of 2018, aged 15 outside the Swedish parliament where she skipped school in her ‘school strike for climate’. A protest which soon turned into a weekly global movement. Since then she’s done talks at the UN, and in 2019 she was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
However, recently she’s disappeared from our screens, despite the climate crisis and protests continuing. When she was reaching her peak and starting to really grapple with the influence of those in power, the media went dark.
She made a connection. The connection between capitalism, colonialism and oppression enacted by the so-called Global North which has fuelled the climate crisis we are currently living in. A connection which is dangerous to the very make-up of the so-called Global North, to the very imperialistic power this corner of the world holds. She was censored. The media turned a blind eye, something easily done when you’re coming from a background of geographical privilege. She was no longer talking about the just white eurocentric climate crisis. Gretas words therefore became seemingly unimportant to the media landscape, despite talking about the biggest threat modern humans have ever faced and the oppressive systems that span as collateral. Those who directly face the implications of climate change, colonialism and western capitalism cannot turn a blind eye in the same way.
Read more about the Climate Crisis and its impacts on women and marginalised people here
She no longer fits the narrative of that young girl fighting for climate action every Friday with a makeshift painted sign outside parliament. She’s no longer just one girl, she has an army of people working with her, and that’s a threat. She represents everything the western world and capitalism does not, and she’s actively fighting back against that very system.
It’s this colonial idea that liberation comes from one figure, we see it across history with Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela. Although big figures, historically they’ve become the pinnacle of Black liberation, forgetting the many people who fought before them and alongside them, as western narratives seek to pull out one person rather than highlight the power that collectivity holds. Greta was that person for the climate crisis, ‘one girl against the world’, ‘one girl against the powerful’ yet now she isn’t the spokesperson she used to be, she herself has power. Her aims have widened, and it may be coincidental that the media turned off – but something tells me it isn’t.
As I write this she’s on a sailboat with 11 other activists who aim to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip. We need to turn our eyes back to her once again, because something tells me she is only just getting started.
