Greta Thunberg has more courage than every Western leader combined

The National

a day ago

GRETA Thunberg has long been an inspiration to me. She is fearless; she has taken on some of the most insufferably terrible people in the world with ease – my favourite occasion being when her Twitter spat with prolific misogynist Andrew Tate was followed by his arrest for human trafficking.
Amidst everything that is wrong with the world, which at the moment feels all-consuming, she really is a consistent beacon of hope for humanity. All of those things were already true, but this week she has outdone even herself.
She is currently risking her life aboard the Madleen ship, launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition on a mission to defy Israel's blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has announced that all analysed regions in Gaza are now expected to be at 93% level three or above. Level three is classed as crisis, level four emergency, and level five catastrophe.
READ MORE: Gaza Freedom Flotilla issues SOS after alleged drone strike off Malta coast
Large parts of all regions are already at level five – meaning that 2.1 million people are facing active starvation, and lives are immediately at risk.
So, the mission is an absolute necessity, and with world leaders failing to step in – the Madleen crew, consisting of Greta and 12 other humanitarian activists, have taken matters into their own hands.
After more than 90 days of food being left to rot at the border while people within Gaza's walls starve to death, and a lack of medical supplies renders healthcare almost impossible, help is finally on the way. Whether Israel allows it to reach Gaza's shores is another story.
Past Freedom Flotilla Coalition aid missions have faced drone strikes and armed offensives from Israeli forces – and given that they have been purposefully starving Gaza since March 2, the Israelis are unlikely to appreciate this disturbance to their brutal genocide.
On May 2, a mere few weeks ago, a humanitarian aid ship was allegedly hit by an Israeli air strike. And infamously in 2010, the Freedom Flotilla mission that set off for Palestine from Istanbul ended in tragedy when Israel killed 10 activists and wounded dozens more before it got there. Just a couple amongst a slew of examples of a similar nature.
Even two years ago, it would have been unthinkable that a household name like Thunberg would ever be at risk of meeting that kind of fate at the hands of a foreign military, but this is genuinely the question we are facing.
Has Israel been afforded impunity to such a level that they would feel emboldened to harm her? If I had to put money on it, I would say yes.
From what I've witnessed in the last couple of years, the realist in me would also believe that world leaders would even excuse it after the fact.
That's where we are as a society. To say she is risking her life for this is no exaggeration, and the anxiety being felt across the world as the ship nears closer to its destination is palpable. It's beyond insanity that this could actually be a reality.
The mission departed from Catania, Sicily on June 1 with the ship's name being derived from Gaza's first and only female fisher Madleen Kullab, who took over her father's fishing business when he was injured by an Israeli attack.
The crew, including Thunberg and 12 other humanitarian activists, is expected to arrive in Gaza by Saturday – if all goes to plan.
It follows US-backed aid group the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation yesterday being forced to pause all aid delivery as a result of Israel's ongoing attacks against civilians and humanitarian aid workers at designated aid centres.
Given the endless raft of war crimes being perpetrated by Israel with the expressed permission and financing of the world's biggest powers, I very much doubt that the Madleen will arrive without serious difficulty.
All eyes are on the international community – and the crew are encouraging the use of the hashtag #AllEyesOnDeck to ensure global powers are held to account for their safety.
This isn't just a humanitarian aid mission; it is the protest of all protests. It is a symptom of our leaders' deficit of moral courage.
When you fail humanity as they have, then humanity is forced to take its survival into its own hands and it will endure even in the harshest of circumstances.
History paints us that picture very clearly – humanity has resolve, it has to. If it didn't, we wouldn't be here.
READ MORE: Neal Ascherson: Gazans are paying the horrific price for Israel's military failure
It's a kind of active leadership we haven't seen nearly enough of on Gaza, a shame that belongs to all of us.
For more than 600 days now we have watched the horrors of the past repeat themselves and for some people, it wasn't even important enough to give up a morning Starbucks. It's pathetic.
Entire economies should have ground to a halt by now – we should have inspired the kind of action that forces the hand of arrogant leaders who are aiding these atrocities in our name and with our taxes.
We need to remember that we are the ones with the power, not the other way around, something we spectacularly fail to grasp in Britain especially.
We might be 'powerless' in the decision-making of a Government with a stonking majority and a Prime Minister with all the humanity of a grain of rice, but there are ways to be heard and I don't think we've gone far enough or sacrificed enough of our privilege to truly force the hand of change.
This humanitarian mission is the gold standard of what the average person can do, but there are layers upon layers below that level that aren't being explored fiercely enough by a large enough number of people.
Change demands action. It demands the surrender of comfort and privilege – and we're failing.
Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be the responsibility of the masses to fix this. In a sane world, one with its moral compass still intact, our leaders would possess the humanity and the skills to put an end to this.
All it would take is an ounce of sense to infiltrate the Oval Office and Number 10 and this would grind to a halt as fast as it began.
Unfortunately, sense in either of those two locations is few and far between and personal gain has taken over any sense of compassion or, in Keir Starmer's case, human rights law education.
It is the unforgivable shame of them all that this small group of passionate humanitarians possess a strength and bravery that they could only dream of.
Each of them has more human quality in their pinky finger than in the global political class combined. And we should all be learning from the example they've made of those with real power.
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Like her or not, Thunberg's dedication to humanity is incredible. She grew up with a lot of privilege and resource and she decided to utilise it for the greater good of the world from such a young age. A masterclass in the surrender of privilege for the benefit of those without.
It's also funny as an autistic person watching non-autistic people trying to decode her burning passion for social justice. A passion so intertwined with her being that she's currently risking her life in service to it.
That rigid sense of right and wrong for an autistic person can be unshakeable, and it exceeds the importance of literally anything else.
I see people accusing her of chasing relevance, but anyone who knows anything about autism knows that she's doing this because to her very core, she believes that what is happening is wrong – and she's right.
This week I'll be hoping that the world keeps her safe and learns from her resolve. If only we all had that same courage of conviction – think what we might achieve.