One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad review – the war crimes paradox

I’ve always been drawn to brave writing. That bravery can be in the form or style of a book, the content or subject matter, or the urgency and clarity with which the author addresses their topic.

You suspect that there was no other way for Omad El Akkad to write the clear-eyed and coruscating One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. The Egyptian-Canadian author has written two prize-winning novels, but it’s his experience as a journalist that’s to the fore in this precise and furious non-fiction book.

As a reporter for The Globe and Mail in Canada, El Akkad has covered the War on Terror, Guantanamo Bay and the Arab Spring. One Day… examines the slaughter of ordinary people in Gaza by the Israeli state and the colossal hypocrisy of western powers towards the countless war crimes being perpetrated.

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The book analyses both Israel’s horrendous actions in the Middle East and the gaslighting that seems to be going on in the west. The murders in Gaza are real-time documented war crimes, and yet the backing of these actions by so-called liberal western countries flies in the face of inter-national law.

El Akkad succinctly examines this juxtaposition and looks at how ordinary, right-thinking people living in these countries can respond to such a paradox, going on to argue that this situation reveals that the promise of liberty, equality and fair play was always an illusion used to keep populations placid. 

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There is anger in these pages, but it’s directed with pinpoint accuracy at its targets. El Akkad uses short, personal memories to highlight his more general philosophical and political points, and he never loses hope. Despite all the ugliness documented in these pages, there is a constant undercurrent that longs for a better world, a more just world, a world in which the current disgusting actions by Israel in Gaza might be called out for what they are, and stopped. Incredibly moving and powerful.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad is out now (Canongate, £16.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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