What readers think of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, plus links to write your own review.

“One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” by Omar El Akkad explores how we dehumanize people to justify their destruction. Many will deny its premise and dismiss it. One cannot point out the hypocrisy of one side without cueing “whataboutism” from another groupthink. When focusing on Ukraine and Hamas, emotions will force the argumentative side out of us.

Some claim to call out both political parties while carefully favoring one or the other. El Akkad has no interest in such excuses and is tired of them in discourse, providing examples when the United States, China, and Israel make sects of people that you did not know existed find themselves wiped out, as influential people rationalize their genocidal actions.

Nonviolence has interesting roots in America. We tell countries that end warfare when one side is clearly the oppressed, to make it go away. Don’t tread on us, though. The act of condemning an entire culture out of fear wins elections on either side of the political aisle, mentioning Mexico, Russia, China, or Venezuela, and responding with dismissive stereotypes.

Over the years, people have framed my thinking on violence and conflict resolution. They pay people a lot of money to combat terrorism by killing more, but it never ends. In the West, we become hypersensitive to what we deem as threats to our way of life, which is how we trick people into condoning endless bloodshed and international interference.

A government movement exists to whitewash challenging history that portrays America negatively, so you really have to appreciate how El Akkad takes a novel about horror and ends with a glimmer of hope. One of my eighth-graders saw my book, said she read it, and feared a story with so much pathos. I could not have said it better myself.