By Ava West
A couple weeks ago, on June 9, political and climate activist Greta Thunberg was intercepted, along with other activists on international waters.
Thunberg has been making speeches, protesting, calling for change and taking action since she was 15. She even started a school strike while in high school, in which she vowed to not attend school until a Swedish election took place, looking to draw attention and sway the vote. So, Thunberg graduated a few years later than most high school students, at 20.
Thunberg is no stranger to pushback or struggle when it comes to making her statements. She has been bullied and harassed, both online and in person. She also has been arrested on multiple occasions for protesting and refusing to leave, such as in Malmö, Sweden, when she blocked oil tankers.
Recently, at 22 years old, Thunberg was taken and detained in Israel for attempting to deliver food and other essentials to starving people in Gaza.
When interviewed at the Charles de Gaulle airport, Thunberg noted that what Israel did was illegal. She said that Israel participated in “an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will, bringing us to Israel, keeping us in the bottom of the boat, not letting us get out and so on.”
She then brought the conversation back to the cause she was looking to spread awareness to.
“But that is not the real story here. The real story is that there is a genocide going on in Gaza and a systematic starvation following the siege and blockade now, which is leading to food, medicine, water — that are desperately needed to get into Gaza—is prevented from doing so,” she said.
Thunberg has been an activist for seven years, protesting, traveling, spreading awareness and more. She has received multiple honors and awards, including being named Time’s youngest ever Person of the Year in 2019.
But she is not the only activist that started young— there are many others across the globe, such as Malala Yousafzai, Mari Copeny and Amanda Gorman. We are increasingly seeing more and more teen/young adult activists. Which begs the question: why?
Is it all on us as young people to create change? How do we do that when a majority of people with power have seniority? And why has it fallen to us?
There are no simple answers to these questions, but there is hope for the future. With young people, and people in general, getting more and more involved, the future is bright. Change happens with consistency and persistence. Activism can be as simple as posting something to spread the word or attending a protest, or as complex as rigging a boat with essentials and sailing to Gaza.
But change does not happen when we turn a blind eye, which is a partial answer to one of the previous questions, why has it fallen to us? I think a lot of youth, myself included, feel like our current leaders and people with power have turned a blind eye to many problems. So, it has fallen to us because we choose not to. It has fallen to us because we still carry the idea that things can and will get better.
It also does not have to all fall to us, if we remind leaders, people with power, adults, of the problems that we face. As Thumberg said in one of her most famous speeches, in 2019 at the World Economic Forum, “Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”
It may feel overwhelming, but there are things that young people can do to get involved if they wish. We see that in Greta Thunberg. And with enough persistence, perhaps we can start to see that in ourselves. For specific ideas about how to stay up to date on current events and get involved, check out the Collegiate article, “How to keep up, get involved and take care of yourself during political changes.”
