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Posted by
Olog-hai
on Sun Dec 15 01:10:42 2019, in response to Greta Thunberg is New York Times person of the year, posted by LuchAAA on Wed Dec 11 10:38:45 2019.
De Kulle
Greta Thunberg apologizes after saying politicians should be put 'against the wall'By Marina Pitofsky
12/14/19 09:34 PM ESTGreta Thunberg apologized Saturday after saying that politicians should be put "against the wall” after some critics alleged that the teen climate activist was advocating for violence against officials.
“Yesterday I said we must hold our leaders accountable and unfortunately said “put them against the wall”. That’s Swenglish: ‘att ställa någon mot väggen’ (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable,” Thunberg tweeted.
“That’s what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language. But of course I apologize if anyone misunderstood this. I can not enough express the fact that I — as well as the entire school strike movement — are against any possible form of violence. It goes without saying, but I say it anyway,” she continued.
Thunberg joined thousands of students in the Italian city of Turin Friday for a protest to push the country’s government to take greater action to curb carbon emissions. She traveled to the city from Madrid after attending a United Nations climate summit in Spain.
Thunberg told the crowd in Turin that world leaders are running away from their responsibilities to address carbon emissions and fight climate change, the Associated Press reported.
“We have to make sure that they cannot do that,” she said. "We will make sure they, that we put them against the wall, and that they will have to do their job and to protect our futures.”
In Swedish, the phrase “putting someone against the wall” means someone is forced to address difficult questions of a difficult situation.
However, some right-wing critics on social media accused the teen of advocating for violence, according to the AP.
Thunberg announced this week that she will she will be taking a break over the holidays after months of attending rallies and protests. Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays when she was 15 to protest outside of the Swedish parliament to call on her home government to fight climate change. She was named Time Magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year.
Ya rite. People are only put against the wall to make them vulnerable to attack, even in Swedish context.
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