Simon: Only her parents stole her childhood - she should be angry at them.
Yesterday, 30th December, Greta Thunberg was invited as a guest editor on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Today". It is well worth listening to here. One of the presenters of the programme, Mishal Husain, interviewed Greta's father, Svante Thunberg. The interview can be listened starting at 20 min 20 sec for nine minutes. I produce it verbatim below and to me it has the ring of truth and makes a nonsense of Simon's assertion.
In the conversation I represent Greta Thunberg, with the initials GT, Mishal Husain with the initials MH, and Svante Thunberg with the initials ST.
GT : Mishal spoke to my father, Svante, about the last year and what it's like for a parent taking up the challenge of a child activist.
ST : Its been very surreal, unbelievable, I think not least for Greta herself, and me and my wife obviously. When she decided we said quite clearly that we would not support it, that if you've got to do this you've got to do it by yourself.
MH : Why did you say that?
ST: Well, obviously we thought it was a bad idea. You know, just the idea of your own daughter sort of putting herself at the very front line of such a huge question like climate change, you wouldn't want that as a parent.
MH : So, it's not that you have pushed her to do this because that often gets asked of young people in the public eye. It was asked of Malala whether her father was pushing her to do this. You haven't pushed her to do this?
ST: No, on the contrary. I mean, I think that's basically why we never do any interviews or anything like this. We are not climate activists. We never were. The things we've done for the climate was to help our children or just to ... because it made them happy, basically, when they were in a bad spot. So I think that's why. We had this conversation many, many times before she decided to do it, and we said "ok, if you are going to do it then you are going to have to do it by yourself, you are going to have to be incredibly well-prepared, you have to have all the answers to all the questions." And she says "ok". At first she made a leaflet of, like, lots and lots, like 35 facts and with all the sources to all the facts, all the reports and stuff, and she had those leaflets on the ground and whenever the journalists came along she would answer all their questions. And that was the surprising thing because she didn't speak to anyone at the time. She only spoke to me, my wife, her sister and one of her teachers.
MH : She has Aspergers.
ST : Yes, she has Aspergers.
MH : But in this period she had also become quite ill with depression.
ST : Ja, much earlier, like three or four years before she went on the school strike she fell ill and she stopped talking, she stopped eating, and all these things. She stopped going to school, she was basically home for a year and she didn't eat for three months which, of course, was the ultimate nightmare as a parent. You have food, and you need food to survive, and your child can't eat it. It's just a nightmare, ja.
MH : How did that start to change? How did she get better?
ST : We took time off. My wife cancelled all her work. She is an opera singer so she was working all over Europe. So she cancelled all her contracts and she stayed at home, and I stayed at home. So we both took time out. We sat down and we got help from doctors. We just took a very, very long time to spend a lot of time together and just work it out together.
MH : But she started to talk once it was to talk about climate to journalists. Was that part of her recovery?
ST : That was much, much, much later. I mean, first of all we just as a family spent like three or four years talking back home, and we obviously didn't have a clue about the climate crisis. And she basically thought that we were huge hypocrites. We were very active, both my wife and me, advocates for human rights and refugees, and we had refugees staying in our house, and my wife comes from a family that has been hosting refugees all her life. So Greta said "Whose human rights are you standing up for since we were not taking this climate issue seriously now". She thought we were huge hypocrites.
MH : You still don't see yourself as a climate activist?
ST : No, definitely not.
MH : But she's the one who made you aware?
ST : Oh, definitely. I mean 100%.
MH : And what changes did you then make in your life?
ST : We just listened to her. And then we saw, and then we realised, you know. I often refer to it as I ran out of arguments because I was saying everything was going to be fine. And I said, you know, we have all these techniques, and people are so clever, and we'll have wave power, tidal power, all these things will work and everything will be fine. Don't worry. We have it under control. As we sort of spent years, basically, talking about it and reading about it together I ran out of arguments and in the end I just acknowledged we're in a very bad place and then we started to make changes. My wife stopped flying, for instance, and that made her...she had to change her whole career, which is a huge thing. But to be honest she didn't do it to save the climate, she did it to save her child, because she saw how much it meant to her. And then when she did that she saw how much she grew from that, how much energy she got from it. So then we thought "Wow". Then I became vegan and she got more and more energy from these things. So I did all these things, I knew they were the right things to do because I understood the facts at that time. But I didn't do it to save the climate , I did it to save my child.
MH : But this year when you yourself, you spent months on the road with her, indeed on the sea with her because you've been with her on those two crossings across the Atlantic, is there ever a moment where you think I would just like us to go back to being an ordinary family before all of this began, or do you have the same sense of purpose that she does.
ST : I don't know. I have two daughters, and to be honest they're all that matter to me. I just want them to be happy. And I can see Greta's very happy from doing this, and I saw where she went before. I mean she didn't speak to a single person. She could only eat in her own home. When she went on the school strike, and I think day 3, someone came along and gave her like pad thai vegan and she ate it, and that was like...I cannot explain how much that, what a change that meant to her and to us, and it was just like...she changed, and she could do things that she could never have done before, and now she's just like any other. You think she's not ordinary now because she's special, and she's very famous and all these things, but to me she's now an ordinary child. She can do all the things like other people can and she's happy. She dances around, she laughs a lot, we have a lot of fun and she's in a very good place.
MH : How does she deal with all the attention that comes her way? Some of it positive, some of it unpleasant. Can she handle all of that?
ST : Ja, I think she deals with it incredibly well. Sometimes, it can be like 100 people come up, they want to take selfies, they want to hug her, and she says yes, fine, every time. And hate, quite frankly I don't know how she does it but she laughs most of the time. I mean, she finds it hilarious.
MH : Do you worry about it?
ST : I do, yes, sure. Who wouldn't. I worry about the fake news, all the things people try to fabricate about her, the hate that that generates, and the fact that there are so many people who are just...they don't want to change. They want this world to be exactly the same as it was. And I understand that. I mean I was completely the same. I think that's the bravest thing. You know, before she started she said quite clearly I know that people don't understand the climate crisis so I'm going to get so much hate, but I'm going to do it anyway. That's what she said before. So she knew exactly what she was doing. And I think, quite frankly, she's very, very surprised she has been so well received.
MH : What do you think she'll do in the future?
ST : I have no idea. I think she really wants to go back to school.
MH : Are you surprised, or even shocked, when you realise that your daughter, your 16-year-old daughter, is a household name around the world.
ST : I don't think of it that way. I know she doesn't. I think if you start thinking about that like a fact, it wouldn't be good for your vision of the world. That's too surreal to take in so I think we just leave it.
MH : How proud are you of her?
ST : Not at all. I don't care about pride. I think pride is just...no.
MH : But her achievements in galvanising people around the world to this cause.
ST : She's happy, and I'm proud that I've maybe contributed just a tiny bit because I listen. My wife and I decided to listen to her. I'm pleased about the fact that we chose to listen to her, because it made her happy. That I can say.
MH : Svante Thunberg, thank you.
ST : Thank you.
