Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is not just a book; it is a searing, heartsick autopsy of the “Western Project” that feels increasingly urgent in today’s fractured political landscape. Born from a viral observation that hindsight is the only place where most people find their courage, this work serves as a devastating critique of the “ethically double-jointed” nature of modern liberalism and the selective application of human rights. In our current world, where the “rules-based order” is being openly questioned on city streets and college campuses alike, El Akkad’s transition from award-winning novelist to defiant essayist provides a much-needed vocabulary for a generation that feels betrayed by the values their countries espouse.
The book’s title refers to the phenomenon where societies wait until it is safe and socially advantageous to condemn an atrocity, only then claiming they were “always” against it. El Akkad masterfully weaves his journalistic background—reporting from the front lines of the War on Terror and Guantanamo Bay—with intimate personal reflections on displacement and the chilling silence of those who claim moral superiority. He pulls no punches when describing the mechanics of this delayed morality, writing: “What purer expression of power than to say: I know. I know but will do nothing so long as this benefits me. Only later, when it ceases to benefit me, will I proclaim in great heaving sobs my grief that such a thing was ever allowed to happen. And you, all of you, even the dead in their graves, will indulge my obliviousness now and my repentance later because what affords me both is in the end not some finely honed argument of logic or moral primacy but the blunt barrel of a gun.”
This is not a detached political analysis; it is a “breakup letter” to the West from a man who once believed in its promises, only to see them dismantled by the reality of Empire. El Akkad skewers the way Western media outlets use passive, sanitized headlines to mask the actors behind violence, creating a “safe distance” between the reader and the victim. He reminds us that the “complications” we use to excuse our silence are often just masks for indifference, noting elsewhere that “it is very important to do the right thing, eventually.” By challenging the “lesser of two evils” logic that dominates modern elections, El Akkad demands a higher standard of humanity and honesty.
Ultimately, this book is a high-stakes recommendation for anyone looking to move beyond “lawn-sign” politics and engage with the raw, uncomfortable truth of our complicity in the present moment. It is a work that asks us to choose our side while it still matters—ensuring that when we look back years from now, we won’t have to lie about where we stood when the world was watching. For any book club looking to have a conversation that actually matters, this is the text that will spark it.