58 pages • 1-hour read
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
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Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, racism, and death.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Values”
In Chapter 3, El Akkad examines the immigrant experience through personal anecdotes and connects these experiences to broader observations about power, narrative, and justice in global contexts. The chapter begins with a description of an incident at the U.S.-Canadian border when El Akkad’s family attempted to travel from British Columbia to Los Angeles to visit a relative. At the Abbotsford crossing, border guards denied them entry, and El Akkad’s father was taken to a Canadian police station while he and his mother were sent home. This experience made El Akkad realize that despite his cultural fluency and efforts to assimilate, he was still subject to the discrimination faced by immigrants. He notes that his anger was worthless against a system that privileged certain groups while marginalizing others, recognizing that for some there existed “a hard ceiling on the consequences” while for others there was “no floor” (52).
El Akkad connects his personal experiences to broader observations about immigration, noting that the “immigrant class” is segregated by narrative—some immigrants receive the privilege of “an arrival story,” while others experience only “departure after departure” (48). He reflects on another incident when his father lost a promising job opportunity in Wisconsin after September 11th because his visa application stalled indefinitely. These experiences led El Akkad to question whether principles of equality under law could easily be set aside to reward those who belong and punish those who don’t. He says that narrative power, and perhaps all power, was never about breaking rules but rather knowing that for a privileged class, there existed limits to the consequences of their actions.
The chapter then transitions to contemporary politics, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that began in 2023 and its representation in Western media and politics. El Akkad describes disturbing scenes of people celebrating as humanitarian aid was blocked from Gaza, settlers viewing bombings as entertainment, and politicians signing messages of support on bombs. He analyzes how the justifications for violence evolve: First, Palestinians are blamed for voting for Hamas; then, they become equated with Nazis; and finally they are dehumanized in order to justify their killing. This transformation, El Akkad argues, reflects how those in power make the dead culpable for their own deaths by portraying them as deserving of their fate.
El Akkad criticizes both American conservative and liberal approaches to the conflict. He notes that while Republicans openly endorse violence, Democrats offer insincere concern while continuing to fund the same violence. He challenges the electoral strategy that urges marginalized communities to vote for Democrats as “the lesser evil,” arguing that “for an even remotely functioning conscience, there exists a point beyond which relative harm can no longer offset absolute evil” (59). For many people, he suggests, genocide represents that point.
The chapter concludes with reflections on protests against Palestinian suffering and recent global political shifts. El Akkad observes that despite differences between mainstream liberal parties and their right-wing opponents on most issues, they often align in their indifference to Palestinian suffering. He ends by asserting that the moral component of history is a single question asked repeatedly: “When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power?” (62).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Language”
In Chapter 4, El Akkad examines how language shapes individuals’ understanding of violence, particularly in the context of war reporting and imperial power structures. El Akkad begins by asserting that controlling the narrative about violence allows perpetrators to escape accountability. He argues that those who suffer atrocities are often implicitly blamed for their own suffering through linguistic manipulation. This pattern becomes even more pronounced when the victims are not part of the dominant Western narrative.
The author recounts his first assignment as a war correspondent in Afghanistan in 2007, when he was 25 years old. El Akkad describes arriving at a NATO airfield in Kandahar and encountering a structure damaged by shrapnel from rocket-propelled grenade attacks. He notes how the base had faced nightly attacks for a month, with only one casualty mentioned: an Afghan interpreter. El Akkad observes how the deaths of Afghans were often related as incidental details, serving primarily to establish the seriousness of situations for Western audiences rather than as central concerns in their own right. He interviewed young Afghan soldiers stationed at the most dangerous positions at the outermost perimeters of bases. One soldier showed El Akkad his outdated weapon and questioned why Afghan forces lacked the equipment and protection provided to Western forces.
El Akkad transitions to a discussion of how language fails to adequately capture reality, particularly the reality of violence. He argues that this inadequacy reflects power dynamics: Those with privilege can describe events vaguely or dishonestly and then look away from the consequences. He provides examples of how conflicts receive different names depending on perspective—for instance, what is referred to as the “Vietnam War” in the U.S. is often called the “American War” in Vietnam. El Akkad then shares an experience from 2013 when he accompanied Google employees mapping Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, a territory in Canada, for Google Street View. This anecdote illustrates how Western technological frameworks often fail to account for Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. The Google team, for instance, had not considered that what constitutes a road in winter might become water in summer.
El Akkad examines how media coverage of Palestinian suffering employs language that obscures reality and responsibility. He critiques passive constructions like “Palestinian Journalist Hit in Head by Bullet” (70)—taken from a headline from The Guardian—that erase agency and allow audiences to view violence as complicated rather than morally clear. He connects this linguistic manipulation to tactics employed during the War on Terror, when torture was called “enhanced interrogation” and civilian deaths were labeled “collateral damage” (71). The author discusses how the “Bush- and Obama-era practice” of labeling “just about any man” killed by the U.S. military as a “terrorist until proven otherwise” serves to dehumanize victims and discourages questioning of official narratives (72). He recounts his experience covering military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, where government censorship further controlled information and narratives.
El Akkad concludes by addressing how a distorted narrative has long been imposed on Palestinians. It denies their expulsion from their land, questions their very identity, blames them for failed peace agreements, and holds them responsible for violence inflicted upon them. This false narrative, El Akkad suggests, provides psychological comfort to those who wish to avoid confronting the moral implications of ongoing violence. The chapter ends with a return to the Iqaluit anecdote, noting that on Street View today, users can see an unnamed road extending into a bay. It appears as if one is walking on water in summer, but in reality, traversing ice in winter. This image serves as a metaphor for the disconnect between representation and reality that El Akkad explores throughout the chapter.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
Chapters 3 and 4 of Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This present a critique of Western political systems, media narratives, and linguistic manipulations surrounding violence and imperialism. These chapters interweave personal accounts from El Akkad’s life as an immigrant and journalist with broader observations about Western complicity in global atrocities. Through this structure, El Akkad constructs an argument about moral responsibility, narrative power, and the manipulation of language to sanitize violence. The text moves between intimate personal experiences—border crossings, wartime reporting in Afghanistan—and analysis of how Western media and politics frame Palestinian suffering, creating an examination of how personal experiences connect to broader political structures and narrative frameworks.
Chapter 3 develops the theme of The Moral Vacancy of Western Liberalism, with El Akkad arguing that liberal politics positions itself as morally superior even while facilitating violence. He contrasts Democratic and Republican approaches to violence, observing that while conservatives might openly embrace violence, liberals often engage in empty gestures without substantive action. He says: “It is a reminder that, in times like these, one remarkable difference between the modern Western conservative and their liberal counterpart is that the former will gleefully sign their name on the side of the bomb, while the latter will just sheepishly initial it” (57). This critique extends his argument that liberals frequently use the specter of conservative extremism to justify their own moral failings, rather than taking principled stands against violence. El Akkad challenges the “lesser evil” framework of liberal politics, arguing that genocide should represent a moral line beyond which arguments about relative harm lose their persuasive force. Overall, the chapter argues that Western liberalism has become hollow and is reduced to slogans without meaningful action, particularly regarding Palestine.
The theme of Sanitized Language as a Shield for Empire forms the core of Chapter 4, where El Akkad explores how language obscures and sanitizes violence. Drawing from his experience as a journalist in Afghanistan, he demonstrates how military terminology and passive voice in media coverage serve to distance Western audiences from the realities of violence. He writes: “It is a direct line of consequence from buildings that mysteriously collapse and lives that mysteriously end, to the well-meaning liberal who, weaned on such framing, can shrug their shoulders and say, yes, it’s also very sad, but you know, it’s all so very complicated” (70). El Akkad connects this linguistic manipulation to post-9/11 rhetorical strategies in which torture was called “enhanced interrogation” and civilian casualties became “collateral damage.” The text argues that such linguistic distortions serve power by making violence palatable to domestic audiences, allowing them to look away from moral complicity. This analysis extends to media coverage of Palestine, where passive constructions and euphemisms remove agency from perpetrators and minimize Palestinian suffering.
El Akkad’s experiences as a war correspondent in Afghanistan inform his examination of journalistic ethics and the act of witnessing suffering. He acknowledges the uncomfortable position of journalists who drop “into the lives of people suffering the worst things human beings can do to one another” only to “exercise the privilege of leaving” (64). This recognition challenges conventional journalistic justifications about bearing witness and raises questions about the ethics of reporting on suffering. El Akkad connects these personal reflections to broader media coverage of Palestine, suggesting that Western journalism often fails its ethical responsibilities when covering imperial violence. The chapter critiques how journalistic conventions like passive voice and euphemistic language serve to obscure responsibility and sanitize violence, making journalism complicit in systems it purports to document objectively.
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