Review of ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS
The failings of the West
Tl;dr – This is a raw memoir of an immigrant’s “breakup” with the West and its moral, democratic failings. It will make you uncomfortable because he is right. You should listen to it on audio to hear his story how it’s meant to be told.
Every day I wake up to the news of something else that is depressing. More cuts, disruption, dismantling, restrictions packaged as “reform” and “greatness”. Anything negative, really, you can guarantee that it’s happening, right now. And that’s just what is happening here. Elsewhere in the world things are so much worse than the “first world” problems we have.
I forgot how I found this book, but I needed a new memoir to listen to on my afternoon walks, and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad, turned out to be an excellent read. It’s raw. It’s right. And it will make you uncomfortable precisely because of that.
Omar immigrated to the West believing in the promise of our freedom. First to Canada for college, then the US. Over the last two decades of reporting on war, justice, and social movements he has learned that the West’s promises are a lie. We have failed greatly in justice, in morals, and in democracy. His memoir is his story of coming to this realization.
The crux of his book centers on the ongoing war between Isreal and Palestine. How the genocide of a people is being justified by the West’s unconditional support for Israel. The growing apathy toward world affairs, toward violence, toward authoritarianism, is shocking. On the other hand, how can one have the capacity to take it all on and care about it all?
He weaves in and out of his own experiences in early life, assimilating in the western world, his career in journalism, and the last 25 years of how the war on terror has shaped the West’s view of the Muslim world. He grapples with the violence toward people that have been deemed “other” in our contemporary political landscape and how the importance of our privileged life is stripped away when you pay attention even for a moment to the carnage that the West is able to inflict with stunning ease.
It's difficult to describe the book, but it’s moving, deep, and a must read. His writing is sharp, accurate, and exactly what you want to read. A monologue of what is wrong, and how we are to wake up each day when such horrors continue to exist unabated. I don’t much know what to do with this book, but recommend that you read it. I know that I cannot disagree with him. I feel lucky to be here while also feeling grave uncertainty about what here will look like in a few years’ time as the political machine dismantles any semblance of what our country was supposed to be.
If we were all honest with ourselves, we might write the same exact book.
Published: February 2025
Publisher: Knopf
Format: Audio
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
Beautiful Country: A Memoir (2021) Qian Julie Wang | Read my review
Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (2018) by Jonah Goldberg
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