One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad – 5⭐

For such a small little book, this book is mighty in it’s message. A message that I think we all need to read but I know well and good that those who should read this book won’t, or if they do, they will read it through a lens of hate so profound that they won’t ever see the Palestinian people as human.

I don’t think this book is aimed at those who will never be persuaded that what is happening in Palestine is abhorrent though, this book is aimed at ‘Western liberals’. Those people that refuse to take a stance, talk about ‘how very complicated’ it all is. People who would rather not make a fuss right now, but will be loud in their condemnation of this genocide when all is over!

“Colonialism demands history begin past the point of colonization precisely because, under those narrative conditions, the colonist’s every action is necessarily one of self-defense. The story begins not when the wagons arrive, but only after they are circled. In this telling, fear is the exclusive property of only one people, and the notion that the occupied might fear the doing of their occupier is as fantastical as the notion that barbarians might be afraid of the gate. Any population on whom this asymmetry is imposed will always be the instigators, the cause of what is and, simultaneously, the justification for what will be. The savage outside does, the civilized center must respond. How does one finish the sentence: ‘It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead, but …’

I don’t ever remember learning about what colonisation was, the British colonisation of Ireland was of course taught to us in school, but it was also something I (and I’m pretty sure a large amount of Irish) just knew about. It’s engrained in us, and I think this is what happens to any people that has been colonised. I also think it’s why a large majority of Irish are so sympathetic toward Palestine. The Irish know the playbook being used, a good amount was written while they tried to eradicate us. The Irish savages who were stupid enough to let themselves rely only on potatoes and subsequently suffered a famine which they called the ‘Potato Famine’. The British don’t educate about The Great Hunger that caused over a million deaths and a mass migration which meant our population didn’t start to recover until the 21st century. They don’t educate about the land that was stolen from us, and the crops they grew on that land, and exported as the Irish people were dying. What does get taught is the amount of aid we received from the British. Colonists are ever so good at making themselves the savior. Now you have countries around the world sending aid to Palestine while they continue to allow the genocide of the Palestinian people. Oh, we know the playbook well! The phrase “To Hell or to Connacht” is in our DNA and we see the similarities!

One of the things that the author really conveys in this piece of work is anger, an anger that he is wholly justified in feeling, an anger we all should feel. Under that anger is despair though, and if a person has even a sliver of empathy they would feel that despair as well. Unfortunately though, the west has done such a stellar job at pushing out islamophobia that some don’t even see those of that faith in middle eastern countries as people, sure makes it easier to go to war with places with lots of natural resources under the guise of ‘democracy’! As I write this review the USA is helping another country with their ‘democracy’ problem. Venezuela just so happens to have a fuck ton of oil! Funny that!! Looks like South America is in their line of sight now.

“There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say “these horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day.” To repeat the famous phrase about “who they came for first” and “who they’ll come for next.” But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted upon them, they would tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead.

No, there is no terrible thing happening coming for you in some distant future. But know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity. Forget even the dead, if you must. But at least fight against the theft of your soul.”

While I 100% agree with the above quote, I do think that it’s important to continue to talk about ‘they’ll come for you next’ because I have to live in hope that ‘the people well served by a system’ will come to understand they are not, and never have been safe. It might be a false hope, but I hope that the Palestinian people survive us waiting for those people to find their humanity.

Every day this genocide continues is abhorrent, and I personally feel less than useless. The only thing I feel I can do is take part in small acts of protest. I’ve been actively boycotting any and all Israeli products since 2020, and started boycotting those businesses that support the genocide in 2023. The biggest problem is that these mega corporation own everything, and you think you are ‘safe’ and then you discover that such and such is actually owned by so and so and they are monsters. I’ve found it safest to source things within Ireland but I know I still have work to do, and we need to be vigilant. Boycotting often feels like it does nothing but the hope is that it will gain traction and Governments and Institutions will start to listen. We’ve had small victories here, and all we can do is keep trying in the hopes it will do something to help those people suffering so much!

“One day the killing will be over, either because the oppressed will have their liberation or because there will be so few left to kill. We will be expected to forget any of it ever happened, to acknowledge it if need be but only in harmless, perfunctory ways. Many of us will, if only as a kind of psychological self-defense. So much lives and dies by the grace of endless forgetting.”

I want to say that no matter what happens we will neve forget, but oh how we know that to be a false ideal! With what is happening right now we are seeing people actively forgetting what came before. I can only hope for the liberation of the Palestinian people!