GRETA EXPECTATIONS

While Sweden once revered their best-known young activist, Thunberg's relationship with her home country has cooled. Is that to do with politics or her growing up

- Zoë Beaty

Last week, Greta Thunberg made a spectacular return to global headlines, this time not as a young climate icon but as a humanitarian, an activist and detainee speaking out. After Israel's navy intercepted the Gaza-bound flotilla that Thunberg sailed on, she was held alongside more than 400 others before she and 130 detainees were deported on 6 October.

Back in Stockholm, the 22-year-old accused Israeli authorities of “cruel and degrading” treatment of detainees, who Thunberg says were crammed into tiny cages and denied essential medicine. Yet she also made a slight retraction: “I do not want there to be headlines about Greta being tortured,” she said. “Because that’s not the story here.”

It has never been that simple, of course, particularly when you’re Greta Thunberg. She was 15 when she began protesting, back in 2018, and now that she is in her twenties, she finds herself under new scrutiny.

By most accounts, her life in Sweden is quiet, insular and stubbornly modest. She completed secondary education - and a run of 251 weeks of climate strikes — in 2023 and, since then, has been awarded honorary doctorates in theology from the University of Helsinki and Law from UBC Okanagan, though university is not on her agenda.

Neither, it seems, is exposure: she’s not the type to announce a Netflix deal, there’s been no talk of political office; “brand Greta” remains unmanaged. Still, she remains a global reference point. And, in adulthood, that means with enough power that her smallest gestures can influence diplomatic statements and feed the belly of tabloid media alike.

This summer saw no such small gestures - in June, she boarded the