One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

By: Omar El Akkad

Narrated by: Omar El Akkad

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is an urgent and necessary reckoning about what it means to live in the West today. As an immigrant, Omar El Akkad believed the West would be a place of freedom and justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the various Wars on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, he has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. This powerful book is a chronicle of that painful realisation, a moral grappling with what it means - as a citizen of the US, as a father - to carve out some sense of possibility during these devastating times.

©2025 Omar El Akkad (P)2025 Canongate Books Ltd

Critic reviews

'Each generation looks back in judgement, and sometimes in horror, at the moral blind spots of earlier generations and previous ages. To get a glimpse of how we in the early twenty-first century might one day be judged for our passivity and hypocrisy, I urge you to read Omar El Akkad's astonishing book' (DAVID OLUSOGA)

'A startling, shocking, beautiful and essential book. It shook me up' (BRIAN ENO)

'If we, as humans, are lucky enough, we will someday be ashamed of ourselves for what is happening in the world today before our eyes. Some of us can already see that day and are deeply disgusted by the collective hypocrisy that waits until it is safe to shout out the crimes. It is not easy to write or talk when you feel that disgust; it chokes you and breaks your faith in humanity. One can hear that all-too-human disgust in Omar El Akkad's words. However, what is more audible in his words is his determination to keep his faith in humans. Only those who can write with such rage and love will give a heart to a heartless world. His poetic voice, with its elegant power, can only come from those who are one with the world, with its joy and pain' (ECE TEMELKURAN)

'I can't think of a more important piece of writing to read right now . . . it remains important to understand what we already know is happening now and how it will be understood in the future. It helps when we feel helpless to give our time and attention, our hearts and consideration to a voice like this, a book like this, from our particular time and for it. There is so much power in language here, where it is difficult to find words, such heart in a world that feels has lost its way. I found hope here, and help, to face what the world is now, all that it isn't anymore. Please read this. I promise you won't regret it. I honestly don't know how you could' (TOMMY ORANGE)

'Is this the most urgent book you can read right now? Yes, it is.

Is this the most moral book you can read right now? It sure is.

Is this the most eye-opening book right now? Yep.

Is this the most needed book for our times? Absolutely' (RABIH ALAMEDDINE)