When Greta Thunberg set sail with a 51-vessel flotilla from Barcelona last month, she no doubt knew that her attempts to “break the illegal siege of Gaza” would face pushback. But she might not have expected to be serenaded with Abba songs on the high seas.
Greta and her activists claim that Israeli drones hacked their radios just off the coast of Crete, blasting the Swedish band’s 1980 hit Lay All Your Love On Me through the speakers.
Putting aside how much of this is true or not, and whether a flotilla of activists is the answer to the Israel-Gaza war, I, for one, am very glad that Greta got the chance to listen to some Abba. They may have some good advice for her current predicament.
Greta became famous almost seven years ago by refusing to go to school on Fridays because of global warming. Aged just fifteen, she was the new, young thing everyone was talking about. She managed to recruit millions of other schoolchildren, got herself invited to the UN and become something of a media sensation.
Politicians across the world fawned over her, and she was quite successful: there’s a good chance we’re all far poorer today thanks to her lobbying efforts. Back then, she was the “dancing queen”, “young and sweet, only 17”. She may not have been feeling the beat from the tambourine, but she was addressing the World Economic Forum.
But much like the dancer in Abba’s titular song, she was adored because of her youth. She was the schoolchild telling the adults off. But now at the ripe old age of 22 – no longer a child, just another activist – she’s struggling.
The first time you heard Dancing Queen maybe you were at a wedding, a school disco or a basement karaoke parlour after one too many drinks. You probably threw your hands in the air, you were “having the time of your life”.
But at some point, in all our lives, we start to see the sadness of the song. Because Dancing Queen isn’t about the youthful dancer having a great time of it. It’s about the singer, watching from afar.
The singer sees everyone “digging the dancing queen”. But it’s not her. Maybe it was once, but now she’s been replaced by a younger, more exciting up and comer. It’s an elegiac paean to life’s tragedies, culminating in an uplifting acceptance that yes, maybe you can’t always be the dancing queen, but you can still enjoy the disco.
I get the impression that Greta hasn’t quite swallowed this pill yet. Hauled out of obscurity and into fame when she was still a child, she can’t quite let go. Maybe this is why she’s pivoted causes: moving on from wind turbines and donning herself in a Keffiyeh as the spotlight shifted.
I don’t blame Greta for an ill-advised series of stunts. The adults around her should have known better than to put a vulnerable 15-year-old on the world stage. But now the music has stopped. It’s time for her to unload the flotilla’s aid in Ashkelon for it to be transported into Gaza, as has been offered to her, and accept that she won’t always be the one in the centre of the dance floor.
When Greta Thunberg set sail with a 51-vessel flotilla from Barcelona last month, she no doubt knew that her attempts to “break the illegal siege of Gaza” would face pushback. But she might not have expected to be serenaded with Abba songs on the high seas.
Greta and her activists claim that Israeli drones hacked their radios just off the coast of Crete, blasting the Swedish band’s 1980 hit Lay All Your Love On Me through the speakers.
Putting aside how much of this is true or not, and whether a flotilla of activists is the answer to the Israel-Gaza war, I, for one, am very glad that Greta got the chance to listen to some Abba. They may have some good advice for her current predicament.
Greta became famous almost seven years ago by refusing to go to school on Fridays because of global warming. Aged just fifteen, she was the new, young thing everyone was talking about. She managed to recruit millions of other schoolchildren, got herself invited to the UN and become something of a media sensation.
Politicians across the world fawned over her, and she was quite successful: there’s a good chance we’re all far poorer today thanks to her lobbying efforts. Back then, she was the “dancing queen”, “young and sweet, only 17”. She may not have been feeling the beat from the tambourine, but she was addressing the World Economic Forum.
But much like the dancer in Abba’s titular song, she was adored because of her youth. She was the schoolchild telling the adults off. But now at the ripe old age of 22 – no longer a child, just another activist – she’s struggling.
The first time you heard Dancing Queen maybe you were at a wedding, a school disco or a basement karaoke parlour after one too many drinks. You probably threw your hands in the air, you were “having the time of your life”.
But at some point, in all our lives, we start to see the sadness of the song. Because Dancing Queen isn’t about the youthful dancer having a great time of it. It’s about the singer, watching from afar.
The singer sees everyone “digging the dancing queen”. But it’s not her. Maybe it was once, but now she’s been replaced by a younger, more exciting up and comer. It’s an elegiac paean to life’s tragedies, culminating in an uplifting acceptance that yes, maybe you can’t always be the dancing queen, but you can still enjoy the disco.
I get the impression that Greta hasn’t quite swallowed this pill yet. Hauled out of obscurity and into fame when she was still a child, she can’t quite let go. Maybe this is why she’s pivoted causes: moving on from wind turbines and donning herself in a Keffiyeh as the spotlight shifted.
I don’t blame Greta for an ill-advised series of stunts. The adults around her should have known better than to put a vulnerable 15-year-old on the world stage. But now the music has stopped. It’s time for her to unload the flotilla’s aid in Ashkelon for it to be transported into Gaza, as has been offered to her, and accept that she won’t always be the one in the centre of the dance floor.