The American magazine Time has just revealed its personality of the year. The choice fell on the young environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
After Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, honored last year, is Greta Thunberg. Time magazine has just announced on Twitter that it has elected the young Swedish “personality of the year 2019”. She is ahead of Donald Trump, the leader of the Democrats in the United States Congress Nancy Pelosi, the American football player Megan Rapinoe, the CIA agent at the origin of the procedure to remove the Ukrainian president, and the pro-democracy demonstrators of Hong Kong.
In the cover photo, we can see the young 16-year-old activist standing on a rock, looking far away, with the following caption: “The power of youth”.
.@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v pic.twitter.com/SWALBfeGl6
— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2019
An extraordinary journey
It all started in May 2018 with a competition organized by Svenska Dagbladet, offering young Swedes to write an article on the climate. His words then touched several influential people in activism.
Then, on August 20, 2018, the day of her return to the ninth grade, the girl then went on picket line in front of the Swedish Parliament. She then explained that she would not go to school until her government put in place concrete measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It was at this point that her story began to truly attract the attention of many journalists.
Since then the girl has come a long way and has not disassembled herself. On December 4, 2018, she notably spoke at COP24, with scathing words: “We are facing an existential threat. This is the most serious crisis that humanity has ever suffered, she said. Our biosphere is sacrificed so that the rich of countries like mine can live in luxury “.
Since then, Greta Thunberg has been inspiring. It is in particular at the origin of the largest climatic manifestation in the history of humanity, operated on September 20. She then chained with a powerful speech to the UN, today mythical:
“My message is that we are watching you. All this is not normal. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at school, on the other side of the Atlantic, had started the teenager, before attacking directly the leaders of this world: How dare you? You stole my dreams and my childhood with your empty words! (…) Whole ecosystems are collapsing, we are at the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you are talking about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth? How dare you ! “.
The icon of a whole generation
The young Swedish woman presents herself today as the free spokesperson for those who feel concerned by the climate emergency.
“She is not the head of any political party or pressure group,” says Time. (…) She is not a scientist or a politician, and does not have access to traditional levers of influence: she is neither a billionaire, nor princess, nor pop star, nor even adult. She is an ordinary teenager who, by invoking the courage to speak the truth in power, has become the icon of a generation. “
His Asperger syndrome is his strength today. “She does not operate on the same emotional level as most people she meets,” says the magazine. Greta Thunberg ignores gossip, and speaks in direct, simple sentences. She cannot be flattered or distracted. She is not impressed by the celebrity of others, nor does she seem to be interested in her own growing fame. (…) Where others smile to reduce tension, Thunberg withered. Where others speak the language of hope, Thunberg repeats unassailable science: the oceans will rise. Cities will flood. Millions of people will suffer.
Hoping that Greta Thunberg’s voice carries the farthest and the longest possible.
Note that the young activist was not the only one highlighted by the magazine. The American football team also won the title of “athlete of the year”. The singer Lizzo was elected “Artist of the Year”, while public service employees in the United States and American entrepreneur Bob Iger were elected “Guardians” and “Man of the Year” respectively. business ”of the year.
