Thunberg turns pro

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has joined the cries against Israel as it battles with its sworn enemy, Hamas. Recently, Thunberg announced she intends to try to visit Gaza on a ‘Freedom Flotilla’ ship. While her blunt and youthful style played well enough for environmentalism, this same youthful stridency adds nothing new to the Israel-Hamas discourse. Her shouts on the conflict add little to the simple and superficial cacophony of talking point criticism against Israel. We should ask ourselves why we chose to listen to her in the first place and how we should think about listening to her now.

A photo of Thunberg was circulated showing her holding a sign supporting Gaza with a little stuffed octopus perched behind her shoulder. The image captures Thunberg’s youthful and even childlike gaze. Consequently, our guard is down until we realize she is not a child and has taken a very grown-up position. Thunberg first emerged as a voice for environmentalism at age 15 when she protested Swedish environmental policy by skipping school. Capitalizing on her youth and blunt speech pattern, she gained widespread notoriety and became a powerful advocate for her position. Thunberg is now 22, and her involvement in the Israel-Hamas conflict marks a new chapter in her advocacy portfolio.

As a public figure, Thunberg is perhaps best known for speaking truth to power. Such actions carry the risk of danger, and for some, they do not lead to being pictured on the cover of TIME magazine as Person of the Year at age 16, but rather as in the case of Alexei Navalny, they lead to imprisonment and death. Thunberg represents her plain speech and strong sense of justice not as an intentional strategy but as a result of her well-known and openly shared diagnosis of autism, which she referred to as Asperger’s Syndrome in a TEDx talk in 2018. Asperger syndrome was retired as an official diagnosis in 2013 and is now included as part of the autism spectrum disorder.

For people like Thunberg, her autism is of a variety that does not involve speech impairment; instead, she displays advanced language skills. But like many other autistic people, she does not necessarily adhere to social and cultural norms. This may be an asset in activism, as it allows her to directly challenge the status quo without worrying about the personal consequences. Her precocious speech has added to her appeal and likely captured the interest and fascination of her audience. Thunberg boasts that autism is her superpower.

Historically, before psychology and neurology came to understand neurodivergence better, individuals with what we now call autism were sometimes referred to as the village fool or fools for God. They seemed to be gentle souls with heightened sensitivity who spoke wise words without fully comprehending the implications of their pronouncements. Shakespeare uses the character of the fool in several plays as a foil to the other characters, speaking truths directly to the audience; after neurodiversity gained recognition and modern understanding, the character of the Shakespearean fool takes on new meaning.

Like Feste in Shakespeare’s 12th Night or the Fool in King Lear, these characters had similar responsibilities and spoke truth to power, but did so with great care. A disgruntled monarch or nobleman could still order death if the words of the fool were poorly received. To succeed in this role, you had to be both smart and disciplined. Shakespeare’s fools knew when they were in over their heads. Thunberg is no fool. She understands that the use of charm and appealing to her audience’s sympathy will disarm them. This allows us to imagine that she is indifferent to her fame and influence due to these traits and her raw, straightforward delivery.

Apart from autism, Thunberg has been regarded as an innocent child, unencumbered by the weight of adulthood. Sometimes, we recognize that innocence affords an exceptional capacity to see hidden truths. We may find it cute and funny when children speak, even when they say something offensive or incorrect. Childhood, in a sense, enjoys protection from criticism concerning blunt utterances.  However, the progression to adulthood adds to the requirements for forming intersocial connections and being aware of the impact of our speech on others. More than just a matter of social convention, adulthood brings wisdom and perspective.  Childhood remarks on immediate and personal experiences are different than public commentary on environmentalism or the Israel-Hamas war.

Depictions of children as adults deny them the legal protection children deserve and require. Before the age of majority, we measure children’s actions under a modified and muted standard.  We understand and acknowledge that in the best case, decision-making capacity and reason naturally evolve and refine with advancing age, education, further neurological development, and nuanced social interactions. We would typically not allow a 15-year-old child to set national environmental policy and certainly would not accept such demands as justification for skipping school.

Thunberg is now 22 years old and should be considered an adult, given her outspoken nature and refusal to apologize. Her arguments can now and should be measured against those of any other adult. In appearance, Thunberg, with her diminutive frame, still appears childlike, and one might be excused for considering her as such. But as a legal adult, she is bound by the laws of adulthood. After the October 7 attack by Hamas against Israeli citizens, Thunberg revealed her pro-Palestine position and added her voice to the claim that Israel was committing genocide despite the ICJ finding that Israel was not guilty of genocide and, further, did not demand that Israel cease its war against Hamas.

Should we trust her to make judgments about issues as complicated as the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine? What does she know of either community, of their faith, their social mores, their cultural heritage, or the millennial-long history of conflict and reconciliation? Thunberg has not stated support for the release of the civilian hostages captured by Hamas, nor has she openly condemned Hamas for their torture and murder of Israeli citizens or their sexual violence and mutilation of Israeli women. In 2024, Thunberg protested against the Eurovision participation of Israeli singer Eden Golan, age 20, and accused Israel of “artwashing” its reputation.

Although still youthful in appearance, Thunberg is no longer a child and is owed no further childhood dispensation concerning speech and conduct.  Setting that aside, her arguments in favor of climate change, or the Israel-Hamas conflict, need to be considered as ideas among many ideas, no better, maybe worse. For Thunberg, her bluntness and direct communication do not mean she reasons better than anyone else. Thunberg has a platform, right or wrong. She intends to use it, right or wrong. When Thunberg broke onto the international scene as a child, her emphatic, direct speech played in her favor. In childhood, we might have considered her a guileless or even vulnerable amateur in the face of enormous public scrutiny. Now at 22, with several years spent perfecting her advocacy and influence and her outspoken position on the Israel-Hamas war, she’s no fool. Thunberg has outed herself as a pro.