There is something deeply disturbing behind the hatred for Greta Thunberg

“A plantage with anger management problems, a madman”. So Donald Trump paid Greta Thunberg in a video released on October 6, 2025, after his arrest during the humanitarian mission directed to Gaza. An insult that perfectly summarizes the treatment reserved for a young woman who has chosen not to remain neutral.

Hatred in the open sea

The 22 -year -old Swedish activist participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla, a group of boats that started to deliver aid to the civilian population of Gaza and denounce the naval blockage imposed by Israel. The ships were intercepted in international waters, and Greta – like 437 activists – was held and then expelled. According to testimonies collected by The Guardian, he suffered “hard treatments”: water deprivation, insufficient food, dirty cells, humiliations. The Israeli authorities denied everything, defining the accusations “brazen lies”.

Beyond the opposing versions, the gesture remains: a non -violent action, made by unarmed civilians, to attract attention to a humanitarian crisis that many prefer to ignore. It is not a symbolic sparrow act, but a choice that involves real risks.

Yet, in some political, media and social environments, often ideologically lined up, the reaction was of anger and derision. “Buffona. Estructed. Made a lifetime”: the language that dominates social media every time Greta exposes itself. Sexist offenses, free insults, accusations of hypocrisy. Almost never a discussion of merit. Almost never an attempt to understand.

When courage disturbs

It is not a simple polarization. It is an emotional refusal to those who break the quiet of conformism. Greta Thunberg has become a target because he puts in crisis the reassuring idea that is enough to indign himself from afar. Remember that consistency, in times of cynicism, is a political act.

His participation in Flottiglia is not an escape from the environmental theme, but his natural extension. The climatic crisis affects with more strength, the populations already vulnerable: talking about the environment without talking about human rights is a shortcut. Thunberg did not choose it.

The verbal violence that receives, however, reveals the difficulty of accepting the commitment when it is not domesticated. It is more convenient to defend an activism compatible with the algorithms, less when it takes on the shape of a boat that crosses the Mediterranean to deliver aid to those who die of hunger.

The Thunberg case is a thermometer of our time: measures the distance between words and facts, between sympathy for good causes and the visceral reaction towards those who put them into practice. There is no discussion of what he does, but who he is. The debate evaporates, only the contempt remains.

Many of those who say “tired of moralisms” defend freedom of expression only when to speak is those who do not question their point of view. Greta Thunberg, on the other hand, must remain within precise limits: credible but not too radical, visible but not uncomfortable. Greta has always broken those limits, and for this it divides.

You can not share their choices, but delegitimize those who act by conviction is a sign of collective fragility. Because it is not, after all, to threaten the order: it is our inability to hold the consistency of others. The hatred that surrounds her does not speak of Greta Thunberg. Talk about us. How dissent puts us uncomfortable, of how uninhabited to complexity, of how much we prefer to reduce every gesture to a slogan or a caricature.

Perhaps this is the most uncomfortable point: we can’t stand those who remind us that acting today is still possible.