Montreal Welcomes a Modern-Day Prophet

Text by Beth Adams, all photographs (c)2019 by Jonathan Sa'adah

 

I participated in the climate march last Friday, along with more than half a million other Montrealers. We had a good-sized contingent from Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, and we all met up there, and walked to the starting point together. My husband, who's a professional photographer, roamed around the route of the march, and ended up just behind the official press area at the stage where Greta Thunberg eventually spoke. 

One of the young people who was marching with us said that this was her very first protest march - she grew up in the Midwestern U.S., and has just started graduate work at Montreal Diocesan Theological College. Several of us, who've already done this for a lifetime, talked to her about how she was feeling -- she was excited -- and she asked about the most recent, or most memorable, marches we'd gone to. 

Students climb up the Sir George Etienne Cartier monument, for a good view at the start of the march.

There were a lot of great signs in both French and English -- I thought the large poster of Greta as Joan of Arc, in armor and dark bangs, was pretty clever, and very French, but certainly hope she doesn't meet such an awful fate.

Who could not be impressed, buoyed, and encouraged by the spirit of this preponderantly-youthful crowd, who seemed determined and mostly cheerful in spite of the dire warnings on their signs? But I noticed that the faces of many of the older people looked much more solemn: we know the stakes and the opponents now, we've been here before: against war, against nuclear power, against apartheid, for the rights of refugees, the rights of women, blacks, the disabled, those who are LGBTQ+. We're worried that this movement, as large as it is, and as absolutely right as it is, will have great difficulty prevailing over the forces arrayed against it. Nevertheless, it was a great day, and I was proud of my city and every person who had come out to march.

We had a long time to wait before getting started, and the crowd was enormous. I never made it to the end because I had another obligation, and my feet were killing me, so I bailed out in mid-afternoon and walked back home; Jonathan didn't get home for several more hours. In spite of the city making the metro free for the day, it was still very crowded, and some of the stations had been made entrance- or exit-only to try to alleviate the congestion. I was impressed, too, with the orderliness and camaraderie of the marchers, and the benign, friendly attitude of all the police. A day later, when my husband and I walked around the area where the march had ended, there was not a trace of debris or destruction from those 500,000+ people.

The Rev. Jesse Zink, Principal of the Montreal Diocesan Theological College, wrote an essay titled "Thus saith Greta", likening Greta Thunberg to an Old Testament prophet. That wasn't a comparison that had occurred to me, and it really struck hpme, especially when I saw the photographs Jonathan had taken. She stands alone and vulnerable, a child, looking even younger than her 16 years, and she yet she has the courage to speak truth to power. Rev. Zink writes:

"Like many other prophets throughout history, her ministry has imposed a cost on her: she has given up school, she has changed her life, she has been subject to accusation, slander, and attack...

In both her UN address and her Montreal speech, Thunberg leveled a straightforward generational challenge: 'You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.' One of the reasons climate change is such an intractable problem is precisely its inter-generational nature: the actions of one generation are largely felt in another..."

Zink speaks of the Biblical covenant between humans and God that Moses revealed as being specifically inter-generational -- in fact, "down to the thousandth generation" - in other words, forever. Other cultures and religions have similar stories that pass down the idea of stewardship for the earth to subsequent generations. Part of why human-caused climate change is so malevolent is that it violates this long inter-generational responsibility, and, I might add, destroys it in such a short period of time.

"As we discussed in the ministry seminar on Friday, the world needs prophets, evangelists, missionaries, and preachers. But we also noted that it needs priests, people who can gather the community and enable its gifts to be released. We saw that in Montreal on Friday in the relatively low-profile and anonymous group of people who provided the forum for a prophet of our time to preach her word."

In my lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite like this young David going up against Goliath. Montreal is not a religious city any longer, but it is a principled and progressive international city where people think, and are willing to stand up for their beliefs. Last Friday, it felt like part of what the crowd was doing was holding Greta up with our bodies and our voices, giving her that forum in which to preach, and also giving her "our ears to hear." Each of us must find our own role in this crucial struggle, and we can't allow ourselves to be discouraged: it is her future, and the future of all the young and yet-to-be-born of our precious and fragile earth -- not just humans, but all living things -- that we are responsible for protecting. 

Comments

[Natalie]

So glad you were there Beth and have writtene so eloquently about this event. Jonathan's photos are equally eloquent and strong, could they be published in the media?

I too have thought of Joan of Arc in connection with Greta - she even looks like some of the images of that earlier young and passionate revolutionary. But indeed I hope her fate is not, even metaphorically, anything like what befell Jeanne d'Arc.

[Roderick Robinson]

They seem like trivial details but Greta Thunberg's impassive Scandinavian face and measured tones are remrkably eloquent. As if at some time she'd become adult (in the widest sense of the word) and had decided to re-adopt the form of a teenager. This is a crisis too vast for cheap and disposable rhetoric, she seems to be saying. We must be in this for the long term (insofar as there is a long term) and our seriousness must never be relaxed.

It seemed typical of DT that he should choose exactly the wrong set of words ("happy" for goodness sake!) to describe her. But with impeachment at his shoulder why should he give a toss about the fate of Planet Earth? And that's it; the reverse for him: with the morals of a spoilt, untutored child he has chosen to array himself as a dayglo-orange-faced captain of industry. Politics? Just a series of murky deals where anything goes, the more vicious the more effective.

Where are you now, George Grosz?

[Kathryn Samuelson]

The Dalai Lama has purportedly said that western women will save the world. Well, I'd say Greta Thunberg is one of them.

[Duchesse]

This essay captures both the hope and shame of the movement. I just happened to watch Ken Burns’ series “ The West” immediately before this. I saw it as the story of every generation who came to North America, regardless of country of origin, despoiling the environment—not just those alive to hear Greta’s indictment. Maybe now, this young woman can mobilize enough outrage to get concrete action.