Man grabs Greta Thunberg's microphone after pro-Palestinian address at climate rally
Man grabs Greta Thunberg's microphone after pro-Palestinian address at climate rally
I don't think this was a smart Move to mix these two issues. Israel & Palestine are so extremely polarizing and mixing this with climate might divide the People and weaken the fight for a green future. For example I would rather avoid that topic. I don't know enough about Palestine/Israel to publicly debate it. And if my climate-rally somehow turns to pro Palestine or pro Israel I would rather abstain from visiting it. Because I dont have a solid View on this topic. And I think I might not be alone with this feeling.
and people told MLK Jr. similar things when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Activists fundamentally fight for justice, and as King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." It might make sense in the short term to look the other way and conform, but when something so terrible happens due to actions from a western ally, it's good in the long term to have principles.
I think the far left and far right have a similar problem here, in that you have to be "all in" on the group's talking points, for danger of being ostracised by your peers.
Activists don't need to be one-track minded. They rarely are. I'm a vegan, socialist, anti-fascist who is against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and for climate justice globally. There's very strong overlap in these positions. There's a reason you won't find a lot of Republican vegans, or pro-Israel socialists.
Yes, sometimes people don't put in the time to investigate these issues, and I commend you for knowing the limits of your own knowledge, I've recommended to people before that it's better to just say "I don't know enough about this issue" instead of arriving at an under-researched position. However, it's not necessary to criticize people who are actually activists, learn about these issues, and go out into the world and advocate for change, so long as they're advocating for the right thing.
The topic being brought up might ostracize people, but it will also put the topic into people's minds. People like you might not know what the correct position is here, but you hear the constant pro-Israel propaganda pumped out by the U.S and might arrive at a subconscious conclusion that aligns with the imperial core.
If you hear people speaking out against the apartheid state of Israel, especially people who align with your values, you might be inclined to look into it more, or at the very least not automatically accept U.S propaganda on the issue.
I have to disagree, the activists that really get things done do have a one-track mind, because it takes a lot of energy, money, and time to make any progress in just one issue. You can certainly care about many things, but you can't go to every conference, cover every issue in your speech, raise money for every cause, etc.
Again. It creates divergence and weakens the awareness for the core Issue of this specific rally and might drive people away from it.
EDIT: Btw. it's pretty bold of you to assume you know what "the right thing" is especially on such an highly complex and diverse topic like Israel/Gaza.
This is what they mean when they say that the left will eat it’s own. Some of them share this view and they don’t want to seek consensus on topics we agree to advance their goals. Instead they demand that others support all their beliefs.
We need to have clean air and water to see the burning of the cities we have genocide in, we need to make a better world to kill other because of where they were born and what sky God they choose.
I don't think this was a smart Move.
So, according to you it wasn't a smart move to grab the mic, and basically say what you're saying in this comment?
Did you, by any chance, not read beyond the headline?
It was not a smart move to mix the two issues. Did you, by any chance, not read beyond my first sentence?
She's never been afraid to speak her mind. How do we address the issue of climate change, if we turn a blind eye to the suffering of innocent people and children done intentionally for vengeance's sake?
War is terrible for the climate. All that extra fuel burning, and in machines not designed to do it efficiently
Not to mention all the destruction of farms, the poisoning of water sources, all the destroyed vehicles and rotting corpses of men and animals alike laid everywhere.
They will be calling this the 2nd Nakba. Not only is it a massacre of the people, the Palestinians last remaining lands have been salted. Gaza looks like Stalingrad.
It is an entirely man made disaster. Or state made disaster if you will.
Well focus is generally useful for getting things done so one way to address climate change would be to stick to climate change discussion at climate change discussion events.
Want to sabotage a protest? Encourage advocacy for increasingly tangential issues. Focus splits, folks start disagreeing on new issues, folks start disagreeing on how issues get prioritized, everything falls apart.
Sadly, this doesn't even require a malicious actor encouraging it. Well-meaning folks see a potentially sympathetic audience for their pet issue and boom.
Nothing builds a coalition as effectively as insisting that you absolutely must include a controversial but completely unrelated topic in the effort.
At some point an acute issue takes precedence over your long term goals. These are pretty wild hyperbole, but I acknowledge I am trying to paint an image.
Let's say you were an activist for the welfare of cattle. But then you find out chickens are hooked up to a new feed system that increases their weight by 20% but also causes them excruciating neurological pain, to the point the chickens are even trying to peck themselves to death to avoid the torture. Would it not make sense to pivot for a moment to the worse animal cruelty for a while? The cows aren't going anywhere.
Let's say you were an activist for climate and a nation state was running towards genociding an entire group of people. Would it not make sense to pivot to the genocide speed run for a while? Climate change isn't going anywhere.
YES!!!
Those are two separate and unrelated issues, and should be treated as such.
This is valueless and destructive virtue signaling.
It is extremely valuable. She has a powerful voice and far-reaching influence. She is using her voice to advocate for the voiceless. Israel is an apartheid state, and they must be held accountable for the crimes against humanity they are committing and have historically committed against the people and nation of Palestine.
Not sure why you think it's valueless. Bringing up the mere topic of Palestine suffering gets your mic taken away, prosecuted and look at like a Hamas sympathizer. It's as much virtue signalling as getting arrested blocking the entrance of an oil conference - as in it's not.
Wars tend to lead to built and natural areas alike getting razed, it's a huge waste of resources and lives. And what for? Political gain? Money for the Military Industrial Complex? All those vehicles except for drones use fossil fuel, and rightwing governments rallying support over wars definitely don't give a rat's ass for the climate. So in summary, the Gaza issue and yhe climate are definitely related.
The linked article even fails to mention what exactly was "pro Palestinian" in the address - there's zero quotes. Shitty journalism.
Also, you can be "pro Palestinian" without being "anti Israel" - although a lot of shit-for-brains populists try to deny that these days.
I remember we used to have anti-war rallies.
I don't recall them being painted as pro-Iraqi.
Can't we just go back to that, rather than being asked to pick sides in an issue where 99% of us have no skin in the game?
Why is is always Israel vs Palestine that gets trotted out for us? I don't remember being asked to picked sides in the Second Congo War, and that killed 5 million people over five years.
It's just divisive bullshit.
Only the sith deal in absolutes
Pretty ironic way to say it, Obi dude
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Greta Thunberg was interrupted as she addressed a climate protest in Amsterdam on Sunday after inviting a Palestinian and an Afghan woman on stage.
The Swedish activist was speaking to a crowd of tens of thousands in the Dutch capital before the country heads to the polls in a general election next week.
Earlier proceedings had been interrupted as a small group of activists at the front of the crowd waved Palestinian flags and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.
The speeches on stage were the culmination of a mass protest that saw tens of thousands of people march through the streets of Amsterdam, urging for more action to tackle climate change.
Political leaders including former European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans, who now leads a centre-left, two-party bloc in the election campaign, later addressed the crowd in a square behind the landmark Rijksmuseum.
Event organiser, the Climate Crisis Coalition, said in a statement: "We live in a time of crises, all of which are the result of the political choices that have been made.
The original article contains 507 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good job by Greta by addressing the elephant in the room first. Nobody is going to take the moral police seriously while the west is supporting genocide. Any climate change protest already comes off as massive virtue signaling right now.
The entire point of preventing climate change is so humanity can continue to exist. The earth can exist without us. If we're gonna start a third world War right now you can forget about the 2050 stuff.
Muddling up these two issues is so very stupid ... just keep the climate message on climate, how fucking hard is that?
The driving force of climate change is the same reason for the military industrial complexe. Profits over people will always lead to these outcomes. You gotta be able to acknowledge and discuss this stuff.
It didn't seem like she was opposing the military industrial complex in general so much as she was opposing Israel specifically, showing solidarity with those in opposition to them, and implying they are oppressors opposed to freedom and justice.
Money from government contracts is more like a grant than profit.
You gotta be able to acknowledge and discuss this stuff.
If the only way to advocate for climate action is to also try and turn people into pacifist commies, we can just stop trying.
edit: the laughable failure to understand basic human psychology in this thread, lmao
What funny is both issue are extremely linked.
Earlier this year, Isreal sign an agreement with Lebanon to help explore the area for gas and oil.
Isreal anounced a new middle East to supply eroupe with gas.
Iareal on October 19 or around ot awarded 12 companies the ability to explore gas and oil in the region.
The only thing that was stopping them is Hamas.
The expected value goes over 400 billion in the last few years, as expressed in a report by the UN about the gas field there.
Besides that i'd really like to know how much these sneseless wars contribute towards further polution. All the jets burning, ground vehicles moving, possibility of nukes
What funny is both issue are extremely linked.
They are not. It's a tiny region of the world and it's ridiculous to even bring a climate consideration into such a conflict.
The only thing that was stopping them is Hamas.
Yes, and Hitler really liked dogs and Nazis did a lot for animal welfare. Fuck off.
Seriously, no matter which side she takes, she's going to lose a lot of support.
Now that was a stupid move…
Both hamas and israel are commiting big no nos against each other. It's very hard to even pick a side at this point because both have valid arguments and none are innocent.
Strawman bullshit. This post is not about siding with Hamas, no one in their sane mind does that. Palestinians do not equal Hamas, the same way that Israelis do not equal Jews or vice versa.
Don't both sides this. Israel has slaughtered 5000 kids and killed more civilians in a month than Putin did in Ukraine in over two years. It is deliberately targeting hospitals schools and ambulances and failing to distinguish civilians from combatants. Israeli politicians have repeatedly used dehumanizing language and called for ethnic cleansing. They have told proven lies about human shields while publicly bragging about how they are destroying Gaza.
Fuck em both.
Neither of them are being honest about the situation and both are committing war crimes. I'm not about to side with terrorists, least of all any group even remotely associated with the muslim brotherhood. And both deserve heavy criticizing given the state both have placed the international community into
Israel has slaughtered 5000 kids and killed more civilians in a month
These are bullshit statistics until they are verified by independent sources.
I think it's pretty easy. Hamas is a religious/fascistic terrorist organization, and Israel is a modern western country with an organized military. I concede that neither are perfect (who is?), but Hamas is so much worse that the choice should be trivial for anyone who prefers secularist freedom.
It does seem, the world over, that wholesale displacement or extermination of Muslims is what a majority of people want. Why else is the Palestinian/Hamas line so regularly blurred by mainstream media the world over? Between Gaza, Xinjiang, North America, and Europe, there's so much goddamn Islamophobia.
She needs better security to deal with unhinged people.
what's this got to do with climate change?
Fuckin bitch
What he really means is that he only wants to hear about one slice of a political view, or he doesn't understand that climate change is a political subject too.
He probably means he disagrees with her about this issue and didn't show up to support a pro-Palestine rally.
I've been told that if your protest isn't disruptive, it's not really a protest, so I'm sure everyone here will be fully understanding and supportive of this guy for standing up for his beliefs /s
I'm gonna get downvoted for this but this is just wrong.
Climate change is science, not politics. We are trying to address it from multiple angles at the aame time (such as political angles, scientific angles, lifestyle angles, etc)
So the fight to make our politicians accept that climate change is sceince and not politics is, ironically, a political fight but climate change and the movments to stop it are not only political.
Climate Change is, yes.
But the policies to combat it are not.
Addressing climate change is politics.
As Hbomb said, "People who say they don't like politics in games actually like politics in games the most, they just wish they were seeing different politics in games, and that's who Caesar's Legion is here to stroke off!"
No it's not! Fighting climate change can be addressed as legitimate issue to fix from both sides of the political spectrum. Talking about the gaza conflict and picking an arbitrary side, does nothing except, drive potential fff supporters away. People will hate Greta and everything she stands for even more. Only for virtue signaling points on social media.
Nah. She is spot on when she says that a movement for climate justice cannot ignored the marginalized, the oppressed, and those fighting for justice and freedom.
Those who would hate her for being anti-genocide and anti-apartheid are already very unlikely to be allies to the climate justice movement, a movement that highlights the way that impoverished peoples and nations, especially non-white non-european equatorial and global south nations, are uniquely suffering the consequences of climate change.
I think you might be narrowing the definition of politics. Something is political not just when two arbitrary political "sides" disagree. Something is a political issue when government policy is involved, and Greta is absolutely in the business of changing government policy. Climate change is also a political issue because it does create a divide among political groups: the rich and the poor. The people who own the most stuff will profit from irresponsible pollution, and have the most means to avoid its consequences. They will be using their political power to make sure things stay that way. The poor will suffer.
Or detract from the movement by bringing other fronts for it to be attacked into the conversation