This book, birthed from a single tweet, was riveting and Omar El Akkad's exploration of how countries and governments cling to power as a means to control, creating conflicts where none need exist in order to maintain their supremacy. With Gaza at it's heart, it asks the reader the hard but necessary questions of which side you are on? Is your inaction enabling? If you say your are on the side of justice, what are you going to do about it? For me this is a MUST READ! - nho
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I can only echo Richard Flanagan when I say this book is a howl from the heart. El Akkad invites us to confront the moral fractures in our world (and in ourselves) by turning a critical lens on the so-called 'free world' and its hollow assurances. Whose lives are seen as worth mourning/rescuing? What happens when the voices of the oppressed are silenced, and the ideals of justice become tools of indifference? What happens when the 'safe' distance of privilege many of us enjoy allows atrocities to be witnessed, and then forgotten?
In a compellingly personal voice, El Akkad threads together essays and reportage to expose the cost of looking away, challenging us to ask: when it is 'safe' to speak, will there still be anyone left who remembers the voices that were ignored? This is a bold, challenging, and often uncomfortable invitation for all of us to rethink not just what we believe, but how we act. Ideal for anyone willing to grapple with the inextricably intertwined forces of history, power, and identity as well as the possibilities for change. -mos
208 pages
2025
From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.
On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet was viewed over 10 million times.
One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.
This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany. It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called ‘rules-based order,’ a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11.
This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.