It was 6am. London. A few days before Christmas. My four-year-old is singing at the top of her lungs and charging around my parents’ house on a hunt for the perfect crayon. There is nothing particularly unusual about this scene except for the fact that the crayon in question was for Greta Thunberg. The world’s most well-known activist needed a writing tool and my daughter, O, was on the case. (Remember this crayon: it’s going to be important later on.)
O, I should note, had absolutely no idea who Greta was. We’re not longtime chums or anything like that. Rather Greta was in London to support the Palestine Action-linked hunger strikers. She needed somewhere to stay and my dad, who is a Palestinian refugee, and appreciative of anyone speaking up about the place where he was born but can’t return to live in, keeps an open house for activists who need a bed or a meal. When the visit had been hastily arranged by a friend of a friend of my sister a couple days earlier, we’d tried to explain to O that Greta was a famous activist who tried to help people and the environment.
