I have come here for a climate demonstration, not a political view
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
Not all beliefs are created equal. You can respect people without respecting their beliefs.
Whoever told you that, stop listening to them. An effective protest is one that expresses your views, and ideally changes people’s minds and builds support for your cause. Disrupting people’s lives is typically counterproductive to actually gaining support.
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.
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 don’t see a connection between climate justice and justice for Palestinians, other than that it’s both about justice. Could you elaborate why it’s necessary to bring these seemingly unrelated struggles for justice together?
I btw totally see how a lot of social justice is tied to climate justice, but specifically the Palestinian struggle seems totally unrelated. Happy to change my mind.
But this is such self pleasuring ineffective rhetoric. People in the first world which is the group you wanna adress. So western (not necessaryly white) rich people who enjoying their comforts in the first world. If you want them to actually do something. Like sell their car and become vegan. You have to show them climate change hitting their home turf. Pictures like Italy and Greece Burning for Europeans, smoke covered NYC, etc. If you talk about a “climate justice” movement, in which the main message is, “dont you care about the brown poor people?” you denigrate this catastrophy as an UNICEF Donation event. No one will give up their SUV for that.
Now the Gaza Conflict is complex and polarizing for muslims and Israel supporters, in which you can only make a bad choice, people will turn away and ignore whatever you are trying to sell.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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