Feb 1

Feb 1 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

About the book

Author: Omar El Akkad
Publisher: Knopf

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print or ebook) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

If you’re looking for someone to put very simply why what’s happening in Palestine is not “complicated,” this is it.

This short, blistering book is nothing short of required reading — for everyone, but particularly liberals in the United States. In it, El Akkad writes a scathing indictment of the West, taking it upon himself to document our passivity so that the title cannot come true. He asks us to admit it: It’s comfortable to live in an empire because that means the empire won’t come for you. This is “I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people” turned up to 11.

Not only is the message powerful, the book itself is also expertly written. El Akkad uses just the right touch of personal essay to make the broader cultural criticism bite, anchoring on both familiar and novel mental models. I thought the chapters on language (pointed at the media) and craft (pointed at writers and artists) were particularly impactful, but honestly, there are no misses. I listened to the audiobook, which El Akkad narrates perfectly, but I am already planning to reread it in print so I can make sure his points really sink their teeth in.

“It is an admirable thing, in a politics possessed of a moral floor, to believe one can change the system from the inside, that with enough respectful prodding the establishment can be made to bend, like that famous arc, toward justice. but when, after decades of such thinking, decades of respectful prodding, the condition one arrives at is reticent acceptance of genocide, is it not at least worth considering that you are not changing the system nearly as much as the system is changing you?”