That was Zoya, in the middle, who spoke yesterday in the Writing Wounds panel moderated by the wonderful novelist Gen Asenjo. In the photo, the young woman with the kuffiyeh asked me at the climate and literature panel earlier (moderated by Nicholas Pichay, where I spoke with Marj Evasco and Ipat Luna) what is the purpose of literature when the forces arrayed on the side of violence are so gigantic and monstrous. I said I hope literature and art are used to escalate the insurgency that needs to topple the incumbency of fossil fuels and its purveyors of violence, and that it must keep making the connections to the future we want and the past we have to leave behind – because there’s no decarbonization without decolonization, and we cannot decolonize if we do not decarbonize.

I shared stories behind the making of Agam and Harvest Moon, and When Is Now with V20 Finance Ministers. But it was my last slide that made a lot of white folks in the audience uncomfortable, which made me glad: The entire screen screamed “Free Palestine is a Climate Justice Issue!”

The young woman later introduced herself as Sandy, born to Ukrainian and Palestinian parents. When my eyes widened she said her sister is indeed Zoya, who I met earlier. Sandy El-Miari said what Zoya would say again to Gen: “We are seen in this Pavilion! You make our voices heard! Your pavilion is a space for Palestine!” And we embraced, then Zoya approached and Kala took our picture.

For two days I’d been bringing the keffiyeh. I’ve been warned several times separately by different friends, that it’s best not to bring one much less display the fabric. But that only encouraged me. Buchmesse security would open my bag since I arrived and immediately they’d ask me what it was even if they recognized it right away. Yesterday I told them it was a scarf. “For what use?” I was asked. I said petulantly “Do you know when it’s cold you should wear a scarf? It’s quite warm now but you are making me cold. I think should wear it and wrap it around me now eh?” And the burly guy grunted and scowled and waved me through. I wore it all day, including outside the fair and I’d receive dagger looks or people would look away. Afraid of a scarf but not an ongoing genocide.

Small acts of defiance matter, even if only to the self and the irritation of a handful of security. We don’t need the approval of other people to do what we must. Every now and then the universe quietly tells us how small unruly acts serve as portable sunlight we share inadvertently. For two days the sisters Zoya and Sandy glowed with the embrace they encountered in the Philippine Pavilion, where imagination peopled the air with the reminder that Israel’s Occupation will end one day, and that #PalestineWillBeFree.