The 16-year-old Greta Thunberg organized student strikes for the climate, and is celebrated and vilified at the same time. It is not the first young activist, who is an overnight protest icon, and thus polarized.
In many countries protested on 25. January children and young people against climate change, also in Germany
Not a week has passed since Greta Thunberg appealed at the world economic forum in Davos with an emotional message to top politicians and business leaders to do more for climate protection. Since then, much has happened. On Friday, thousands of students from all over Germany demonstrated in Berlin against climate change. Also in the USA, Australia, Canada, Austria, and Switzerland, children and young people under the Motto of “Fridays for Future” on the road. On the day before more than 30,000 young people were drawn to climate protection from Brussels.
But not only the protests, inspired by Greta Thun Berg’s “student strike for the climate”, held every Friday in front of the Reichstag in Stockholm, to take on travel. The Swede is, since your speech at the UN climate change conference in Katowice, in December, world-renowned, increasingly, the middle of a heated mind battle. In the media, the 16-Year-old is being touted as a “shooting star” and “the figurehead of the climate movement”. The Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise described them recently as “my newfound super-heroine”, the “TIME”magazine named one of the most influential Teens of the year 2018.
Praise and defamation
In the social networks the student, the bypasses open with her diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome gets a lot of encouragement. But hostility, as a “precocious and disturbed” and as a “stupid kid” insults. The Chairman of the AfD in Saxony attested to her on Twitter a “psychosis”. In a blog post, the braids are, the Thunberg mostly, as “BDM [Anm. d. Red.: Bund Deutscher Mädel]-hairstyle”. It is not the only Nazi comparison that is doing the rounds on the net.
A fighter for the Good, or a puppet? Greta Thunberg for their Fans as well as your enemies is a projection surface
Again and again, the allegation appears that Thunberg was foreign controlled by their parents, a PR company, environmental organisations, of the policy. Media speculation that her sudden fame is the Swedish PR consultant Ingmar Rentzhog, which is to guarantee to have your Postings in the social networks helped, but assured it was not a planned PR campaign.
The rapid rise of the teenager to the face of a movement, the hatred on the one hand, the hero worship on the other side: Much of the case Thunberg is reminiscent of the stories of other young activists. The then 19-year-old American schoolgirl, Emma González, in the framework of the protests for stricter gun laws following the school massacre of Parkland world was less than a year ago famous.
Death threats and conspiracy theories
It was also celebrated: The magazine “Glamour” called her a “icon” and the “face of the #” never again “movement”, the Washington Post compared it to the Cuban national hero José Martí, on Twitter, followed her within a few days, a Million users and “TIME” are displayed together with other activists, who had survived the massacre, on its title page.
But González had quickly according to strong opponents. A Republican candidate for the Congress elections, called the girl with the shaved head a “Skinhead lesbian”. Together with their comrades-in-arms González caught the attention of conspiracy theorists, the defamed, the young people as a “crisis actor”.
Belongs to the such-maligned David Hogg. The 18-Year-old, along with González, as the figurehead of the student protests against gun violence. He was also shown on the “TIME”Cover, wrote after the massacre, a book and quickly made enemies. The TV host Laura Ingraham about taunted him on Twitter, because he had received Cancellations from a few universities. Hogg’s mother reported in the “Washington Post” of death threats against your family.
The Brand Malala
Also, the child rights activist and youngest Nobel peace prize winner ever, Malala Yousafzai, is worshipped. After you survived at the age of 15 years, an assassination attempt by the Taliban, she became a global symbol of the fight for educational opportunities for girls.
Her autobiography is an international best-seller, a documentary about her life made it into the shortlist of the Oscars. Yousafzai is now a millionaire, an internationally sought-after speaker and is managed by a leading advertising Agency. In your home country, the 21 cleaves-Year-old, however, the minds. Your book has been banned in many Pakistani schools, not a few see you there as from the West, orchestrated nest beschmutzerin.
“Any advocate for the climate, experienced in this criticism”
Another activist, standing as a child in the spotlight, Felix Finkbeiner. Much of his career is reminiscent of the story of Greta Thunberg. As an elementary student he began working with friends to plant trees to counter climate change. He founded children and youth initiative “Plant for the Planet” now has approximately 70,000 members worldwide. Finkbeiner has spoken before the United Nations and in the EU Parliament. Last year, he was awarded the Federal cross of merit – at the age of 21.
Last March, visited Malala Yousafzai for the first Time since the Taliban’s assassination attempt back to their home country
From his point of view, the extreme counter-reaction by the Hype triggered by figures such as Greta Thunberg to have anything to do with their age. “Any advocate for the climate, experienced in this criticism. The students in the US have not experienced, because they were students, but because they have worked for one of the divisive issues in your country,” said Finkbeiner. The criticism referred often to the age of the young activists, but “it comes before all, then, if one uses a subject that people already counter-positions to represent you”.
“The hate hits you, because you appear to be vulnerable”
Something else that Sebastian Haunss sees protest by researchers at the University of Bremen. Above all, the hostility were a Social Media phenomenon, a result of the lack of consequences for bullying on the net. On the other hand, the negative reaction with the strong effect of the young people have to do. “The hate hits you, because they are figureheads, and because they appear to be vulnerable”.
The latter is the reason why young people in particular were worth as the faces of the movements. “Students are defenceless and vulnerable than adults, if they occur in Public. At the same time they don’t expect you to be right the first time, that they behave tactically or strategically, but that they are really convinced of what you say. Therefore, you will also get more attention than if the same kind of protest from the adults.”
Grateful Media
The media play according to Haunss a Central role. Figureheads such as Thunberg were “for the media impact of protest movements is important, because the media coverage is not bad if there are these”. So whether it’s to watch about the protests by the French “yellow West”, “still have no real faces, and you have seen how difficult it is for the media to take something like that, because of the personalization aspect”is missing.
I can confirm that Felix Finkbeiner: The media had focused striking, often to his own personal history and less on the topic that was dear to his heart. “I believe that it is particularly on the issue of climate is easier to write about a person, a personal story, to explain complex issues,” he says.
A Protest without a leader: The “yellow West”movement that started in France, so far without icon
This should not damage the concern. “We would not just talk about the topic of climate, if not the Greta would have asked if she hadn’t managed to get this issue back on the front pages.” Young people have “the ability to see through our rationalizations and topics very clearly. We of course know all the arguments why it is hard, the climate crisis to tackle. But we must also remember how important the Problem is.”
Puppets of the policy?
And the accusation that young people, the rise in short-time icons of the protest movement, were politically instrumentalized? Finkbeiner claims that as a child and Teenager, never under pressure or in a professional to be on media appearances have been prepared. Instead, he says amused, he had convened as a student, even a press conference. That Greta Thunberg controlled neither foreign nor an exception, show the fact that the student protests have become independent in the meantime, and tens of thousands would have joined it, says Finkbeiner, adding: “You can convince as a parent, a child, at Christmas, a poem to recite, but not what I know how to sit for many weeks in front of the Parliament”.
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Thousands of students protest for climate protection
According to the protest researchers Haunss Try young activists for certain purposes are to be excluded, never. But he also has no doubt that Greta Thunberg, and others are driven by the honest Motivation. In the case of the young figureheads of the past few years were “individuals who do not get this Position, because some strategic planning behind it, but because you really have to be with commitment”.
That will do Greta Thunberg well-to-continue – in spite of the headwinds. Whether addressing their message is factual, however, is questionable. As it comes also: For the 1. February, worldwide student strikes are planned.