【News Share】"Environmental Girl" Greta—Is She a Petite Bourgeois Democratic Faction or a Bourgeois Opportunist?

[FallWind]

The following news is reprinted from Lianhe Zaobao:

At the beginning of this month, the “Environmental Girl” Greta Thunberg, who boarded the international Gaza aid flotilla, was arrested and detained by the Israeli military. Since then, there have even been reports that she was abused by the Israeli military.

According to BBC local time October 6, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Thunberg and 170 other activists had been deported. They took a plane from Ramon International Airport in southern Israel to Greece and Slovakia. This is Thunberg’s second time being deported by Israel after failing to reach Gaza by sea.

On August 31 this year, the “Global Sumoed Fleet” (GSF) departed from Spain carrying humanitarian aid with the aim of “breaking Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza.”

On October 1, local time, the Israeli military intercepted all ships, and subsequently arrested all members of the fleet. It is reported that most of them are detained in the heavily guarded Ketzioh Prison located in a desert area. This prison was previously mainly used to detain Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are accused by Israel of participating in militant or terrorist activities.

Since then, protests have erupted in several European cities including Geneva and Paris. On October 3, hundreds of thousands of Italians responded to union calls, took to the streets nationwide, and held a general strike to express support for the Gaza aid flotilla detained by the Israeli military.

On October 4, local time, a total of 137 released activists arrived in Istanbul, Turkey. Upon arrival, they exposed to international media outlets such as Anadolu Agency, TRT, and CNN that they had been subjected to “violent abuse” by the Israeli military.

“They grabbed Greta Thunberg’s hair and beat her, forced her to crawl and kiss the Israeli flag”; “Thunberg was publicly humiliated, forced to wrap herself in the Israeli flag, and displayed like a trophy”…

The UK’s Guardian also reported on the same day that Thunberg, who was being held by the Israeli military, told Swedish officials that she had been subjected to harsh treatment, “being kept in a cell full of bedbugs with insufficient food and water.” Swedish diplomatic officials revealed via email to Thunberg’s friends and family that other detainees confirmed they saw Thunberg “forced to hold up the Israeli flag for photos.”

On October 5, local time, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement via social media platform X denying the claims that “Thunberg and other detained members of the fleet were abused by the Israeli military,” calling such claims “shameless lies.” They insisted that the legal rights of all detainees had been “fully protected.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also claimed that Thunberg was not released because she herself refused to be deported.

The statement read, “Interestingly, Thunberg and other detainees refused to expedite the deportation process and insisted on extending their detention period. Regarding these absurd and unfounded accusations, Thunberg has never filed any complaints with Israeli authorities because these events simply did not happen.”

A few days ago, “Environmental Girl” Greta Thunberg (hereinafter referred to as Thunberg) and her fleet once again made high-profile claims to go to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. After approaching the relevant sea area, they were arrested by Israeli fascists. After several days of detention and exposure to abuse during detention, Thunberg was finally released recently and boarded a plane leaving Israel.

Greta Thunberg rose to fame through “environmental protection.” However, after that, due to shifts in imperialist policies, she temporarily faded from the public eye. Subsequently, she seemingly took a stance against U.S. imperialism on the Palestine issue, openly expressing her opposition to Israel and support for Palestine. This has led many to question: Thunberg, who makes various false statements about environmental protection and loudly supports Palestine, is she motivated by what class stance? Is she a petty bourgeois democrat or a scheming opportunist trying to gain political capital?

Welcome comrades to discuss in the comment section!

Reference news links:

“环保少女”被曝遭以军虐待：她被拽头发、被迫爬行和亲吻以色列国旗_腾讯新闻

环保少女被曝遭虐待强迫亲吻以国旗 获释人士揭露虐待行为_新闻频道_中华网

以色列外交部：“环保少女”通贝里和其他170名活动人士已被驱逐出境

https://hk.news.yahoo.com/以巴戰爭：「環保少女」通豚里疑遭以冊毒打-强迫亲向亞族国旗-以方吠所有指投盟。

[FallWind]

I am quite confused myself. On one hand, historically, Greta entered the political stage through what is called the environmental movement. At that time, the imperialist bloc was also using the pretext of the so-called environmental movement to further exploit other oppressed nations and countries. Riding this wave, she quickly rose to worldwide fame. However, not long after, as imperialist policies changed and they no longer promoted environmentalism, Greta lost her utility to them, was no longer widely reported on by them, and frequent news emerged about her being arrested by Swedish police due to environmental activism.

This is what puzzles me the most. If she were truly a lackey of imperialism, she should have kept pace with their organizations. But during this period, her actions were actually contrary to the imperialist bloc. However, because Sweden is an imperialist country in Northern Europe where the monopoly groups of clean energy are relatively strong, it is not ruled out that Greta might be acting as a vanguard for these monopoly bourgeoisie. But without concrete materials, it is difficult to judge.

Some time ago, when Israel invaded Gaza, causing the people there to suffer hunger, death, and extreme hardship, many petty-bourgeois democratic factions spontaneously began supporting Hamas and the people of Gaza. It was during this time that Greta started organizing the so-called “Freedom Flotilla,” beginning to send humanitarian aid to Gaza. But in reality, she did not actually deliver any supplies into the Gaza city; most shipments were turned back by Israel before arrival. Nevertheless, this action earned her enormous political prestige, making her seemingly a representative of the people overnight.

If we look further at the members of the Freedom Flotilla, we find that most are the grandchildren of mayors, former parliamentarians of certain countries, and other bourgeois figures. Their purpose in going to Gaza is quite clear: to accumulate political prestige through such actions. Therefore, traveling with them and being comrades-in-arms cannot be an independent petty-bourgeois democratic faction outside of them. Moreover, in fact, Greta and her group’s actions were supported by the people; after their detention, Italian workers even launched a strike. Currently, there is no conclusive evidence proving that she is a bourgeois opportunist.

In summary, it can be seen that the class identity under which environmental activist Greta operates cannot be proven solely by digging up various evidences from an empiricist perspective. Therefore, to thoroughly understand the nature of this person, one should step beyond empiricism and formal logic, and analyze her class stance using dialectical logic.

[jqr]

This person comes from a bourgeois family. According to Wikipedia, Greta Thunberg’s father is Swedish stage actor Svant Thunberg, and her mother is Swedish royal court singer opera soprano Malena Ernman.^[9] Her grandfather is director and actor Olof Thunberg. Besides that, this person is highly skilled in political deception and speculation. If he were a democrat, he would be a revolutionary democrat in history, or at least someone who has escaped from the reactionary classes and sympathizes with the revolution, at least holding naive sympathy for the working people. But Greta does not do so; from her so-called environmental actions, it can be seen that she often organizes so-called strike actions. The slogan she first proposed was also very reactionary, saying that adults should not ruin the future of minors, which essentially equates the bourgeoisie with the proletariat. Moreover, this person does not care about environmental protection or not; when she was in the United States, she was even taken out and traveled by jet plane.

[jqr]

There are also puzzling points. Today, Nazi China is vigorously promoting the news that Greta was arrested, and many related reports have unusually turned into positive coverage. Why would the Nazis go to such lengths to sing praises for a (if it is true) democratic figure?

[typhoon]

The latest guide on ideological struggle states that for the bourgeois democratic faction, democracy is merely a means to achieve their own ends, replacing others’ privileges with their own. In contrast, the petty bourgeois democratic faction’s democratic ideas are combined with sympathy for the difficult lives of the people.
Therefore, Greta’s lifestyle clearly shows which class she belongs to: someone who eats bread but not the crust, who even crosses the Atlantic by ship just to put on a show for herself. Moreover, coming from a bourgeois family background and not engaging in any labor, such a person who is detached from labor, practice, society, and the people is merely a bourgeois opportunist.

[FallWind]

(Currently a bit busy, will update later)

[FallWind]

My own view is that Greta is a bourgeois speculator. The argument is as follows:

In her early years of so-called environmental activism, various signs indicated that Greta was not genuinely engaged in environmental protection. She once put on a show claiming she would travel by green trains (because this supposedly best protects the environment), and to demonstrate her determination, she only bought a standing ticket and sat in the aisle of the carriage. However, enthusiastic people later exposed that she had actually purchased a business class seat and only posed in the aisle for photos before returning to her seat.

This person also claimed to save food, but was caught on camera eating only the white part inside the bread while throwing away all the crusts. This shows that her proclaimed food-saving and environmental protection were just slogans. Additionally, she loudly declared that to save energy and protect the environment, she would sail to the United States by sailboat. In reality, for this political stunt, she first transported the sailboat by plane and then used a helicopter to livestream her “feat” of crossing the ocean. The waste and environmental damage caused by this far exceeded that of using public transportation like a plane.

From these facts, it is clear that Greta is not someone who mistakenly treats environmental protection as a means to “save the world” due to being inexperienced or unclear about capitalism and exploitation. She is not genuinely passionate about environmental protection as she appears; rather, she uses environmental protection as a tool to gain political prestige for herself and to benefit the monopoly bourgeois groups behind her. From this perspective, she is no different from those activists who daily shout slogans about sexual liberation, gender diversity, animal protection, environmental protection, condemning meat-eating and praising vegetarianism — the so-called “white left” or liberals in the eyes of vulgar commoners and right-wingers.

However, due to changes in imperialist group policies (on the surface, the so-called environmental protection ideology and policies that were hyped by the US imperialist groups a few years ago have now been discarded), Greta has long since transformed from a favored capitalist lapdog into a disfavored one. Because she is a bourgeois lapdog who cannot even distinguish who her master is, she is called a disfavored lapdog.

Therefore, when she continues to insist on so-called environmental policies, she has been arrested multiple times by Swedish police. As for why she insists on these policies rather than siding with her masters and opposing her former stance from a few years ago, I speculate it is to maintain the political image she initially crafted for herself. Because it was precisely the “environmental girl” image created by her and the monopoly bourgeoisie that allowed her to gain support from some confused or deceived masses and petty-bourgeois democrats, thus giving her a chance to be appreciated again by the bourgeoisie and regain influence. In common terms, she still has “traffic” and “heat,” and cannot afford to lose her “base” by throwing away the big picture for small gains. If she tore off this mask, she would lose her political value completely.

Such a political investor is very skilled and keen on maintaining and accumulating her political prestige, hoping to cash it in one day. So when Israel brutally massacred the people of Gaza, this speculator keenly sensed the new historical trend, understanding from the right-wing perspective that the fascist actions of Israel would surely be unpopular and condemned by people worldwide. She thus seized this opportunity to loudly proclaim her intention to aid the people of Gaza, fearlessly facing Israeli fascist “persecution,” and organized multiple flotilla activities.

In reality, the crew on the same ship as Greta are all bourgeois or descendants of bourgeoisie who have been given the title of “activists.” They did not truly go to support the people of Gaza; their multiple activities were merely sailing near the coastline before being turned back by Israel. The people of Gaza have never actually received any help from them.

However, because the world’s working people oppose aggressive wars and demand world peace; because all people oppose fascism and demand national liberation, Greta’s flotilla’s political speculation and “propaganda” somewhat reflect the just demands of the masses and petty-bourgeois democrats, thus gaining their support. Seeing the deceived people’s support, Greta and her organization know their political speculation and prestige accumulation have succeeded; they will therefore be even more enthusiastic about such performative acts that do not truly help Gaza.

Therefore, when the crazed fascist Israel actually arrested them, their “opportunity” came: on one hand, Israeli fascist abuse further incited global anger against fascist forces and sympathy for them as “victims.” On the other hand, their “persecution” fulfilled their political speculation goals. [There is a piece of information released by Israeli fascists that can be referenced. But since Israeli fascists have no political honor or morality, the authenticity of this information cannot be guaranteed. The content is as follows: Israel said after releasing Greta that they wanted to release her earlier, but she and some other activists insisted on staying longer. If true, this would further prove her political speculation purpose.]

Sure enough, when Greta safely boarded and landed, she immediately gave a speech supposedly “against” colonialism, genocide, and fascism, quickly gaining massive attention. On the Chinese internet alone, many bourgeois liberals, petty-bourgeois democrats, and deceived masses regard her as a “modern Joan of Arc,” “female Che Guevara,” “girl Mandela” (without discussing the reactionary aspects of Che Guevara and Mandela here), saying they had misunderstood her before and now will “turn from fans to critics.” In their words, the “environmental girl” has grown into a “freedom fighter,” and Greta Thunberg was momentarily the most prominent figure.

It can be said that this “environmental girl” has ruthlessly profited politically by exploiting global sympathy and support for the people of Gaza. She is very likely to cash in this political wealth in the future like Zelensky or Schwarzenegger and have the chance to join the ruling monopoly bourgeoisie. Therefore, in my view, the so-called “environmental girl” Greta Thunberg is absolutely not a petty-bourgeois democrat but an unqualified bourgeois ambitious speculator!

[FallWind]

There is another quite interesting matter that everyone can take a look at:

From the perspective of many ordinary people and the bourgeois intellectuals, if political personnel, diplomats, or some activists from other countries are arrested, then from the standpoint of political interests, the best approach is to deport them back; temporarily imprisoning them is second best; killing them is the worst. Because killing non-combatant personnel from neutral countries will only provoke opposition from all progressive people, which in turn will arouse the indignation of people worldwide and completely isolate oneself.

Ordinary people can understand this reasoning, and the ruling class of Israel cannot be unaware of it. However, in reality, Israel has repeatedly killed journalists, staff, and some diplomats sent by United Nations organizations. This time, after arresting Greta, they also used many means to humiliate her. But in the end, due to their class interests, they did not dare to kill her directly, so they released Greta. (Of course, these extremely reactionary actions have indeed aroused the anger of people worldwide, further pushing Israel into complete isolation). This leads one to ask, why does Israel do this? What benefits do they gain by humiliating Greta and killing other democratic figures?

After communicating with other comrades, I think it is like this: the reason we cannot understand is because we view issues from the standpoint of the working people and the general masses. Israel, however, views issues from its fascist nature. They are fundamentally fascist believers and the most reactionary bourgeoisie, and therefore their historical and philosophical views can only be reactionary idealism. They look down on the people of the world, do not understand, nor consider the people of the world as the driving force of historical development. Thus, they foolishly and arrogantly try to intimidate people through humiliation and harm, hoping that after seeing these tragedies, the people of the world will fall silent and not oppose their fascist actions.

Including earlier when they killed Hamas leader Sinwar, they even released footage of him fighting until his heroic death. After that, they cruelly insulted the corpse, conducting a so-called “autopsy” and widely informing the world that Sinwar had not eaten or drunk for several days before. In their imagination, even the Hamas leader was beaten to death by them and reached a state of no food or water. Such news was intended to greatly strike Hamas and make the people of the world submit to fascism.

But reactionaries always end up shooting themselves in the foot. The actions of Israeli fascists are just like those of Japanese fascists nearly a century ago. At that time, Japanese fascists killed Yang Jingyu, dissected his corpse, and displayed his head publicly, attempting through these means to crush the fighting spirit of the Chinese people and frighten them. But the opposite happened: after learning of General Yang Jingyu’s sacrifice, the Chinese people resisted the Japanese invaders even more fiercely and resolved to expel the Japanese invaders from the eastern part of the country.

Israeli fascists, like the Japanese invaders then, hoped to gain a favorable outcome after releasing videos and statements. But in the end, they neither frightened the people of the world nor hindered their determination to continue fighting; instead, they further ignited their fighting spirit. Hamas continued its struggle afterwards, constantly destroying Israeli tanks and killing Israeli invading soldiers, persisting to this day.

Now, by humiliating Greta, Israeli fascists again attempt to intimidate the people of the world. But once again, they have miscalculated. Although Greta is just an investor and has not contributed much to the people of Gaza, she nevertheless reflects the will of the people of the world to support Gaza and oppose Israel. Therefore, after the incident, Italian workers went on strike, and other countries, under pressure from their people and masses, expelled many Israeli diplomats. Now Israel has once again placed itself in a position isolated from the people.

It can be said that fascism is precisely a manifestation of the bourgeoisie’s weakness. It shows that the bourgeoisie cannot maintain its rule through normal peaceful means or democratic forms, not even a little. So it can only rely on such terror tactics to try to remain standing at the end. But this violates historical materialism and is impossible to achieve. Fascism is most rampant when it is about to perish. The rule of Israeli fascists will certainly not last long; the people of the world will ultimately overthrow them and liberate the people of Gaza!

[十月的风]

Tonberry is indeed a bourgeois speculator, but many of the working people and progressives in society regard him as a representative figure resisting Israel. If Tonberry successfully delivers supplies, it will encourage more people to fight to send supplies in. This would cause Israel’s famine policy and blockade to collapse. Therefore, Israel intimidates, abuses, and humiliates such speculators to scare other people. This is why Israel is foolish; they do not believe in the power of the people and think that people will stop resisting out of fear. This is because their past methods of enslaving the Gaza people through deception have already failed. Now, militarily, they have suffered serious defeats and have had to resort to the most reactionary and yet most fragile famine policy to massacre the working people. Otherwise, they cannot temporarily suppress Hamas, which still relies on the power of the working people, forcing them to ruthlessly attack the people of the world who oppose them. Fascism is a manifestation of the weakness of capitalism. No matter what means they use, they cannot prevent their downfall, so they are foolish and ridiculous.

[FallWind]

Sharing the relevant video here, it is evident that Greta herself, through this experience of being “arrested,” has indeed fully achieved her goal of gaining political notoriety.

[jqr]

And what’s strange is, I feel like that idiot’s visit was useless. Besides saying a few words, what good can she do for Israel by going there?

[jqr]

In fact, it also shows that the petty bourgeoisie in capitalist society is very prone to following various ideological trends promoted by the bourgeoisie. A few years ago, they were all insulting Greta along with the bourgeoisie, and now they have turned to lavishly praising Greta together with the bourgeoisie.