One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

埃及裔美籍小說家和記者奧馬爾‧艾爾‧阿卡德（Omar El Akkad）一部強有力的反思之作，探討在一個背叛基本價值的西方世界中生活意味著什麼？

「這是一部令人振奮的回憶錄和宣言。」——《紐約時報》

「我無法想象現在有比這本書更重要的讀物。我在這裡找到了希望和幫助，來面對當下的世界，所有它曾經是的，但現在不再是的。請讀這本書。我保證你不會後悔。」——托米‧奧蘭治（Tommy Orange），Wandering Stars和There There作者


2023年10月25日，在加薩地帶遭受三週的轟炸後，奧馬爾‧艾爾‧阿卡德發佈了一條推文：「有一天，當世界再度變得安全；當批評這件事不再會損害個人利益；當追究責任已為時已晚，所有人將會說他們自始至終都是反對這場暴行的。」

這條推文已經被觀看超過一千萬次。

作為一位移民，艾爾‧阿卡德曾相信西方承諾自由，一個對所有人都公平的地方。然而，在過去的二十年中，從報導「反恐戰爭」，到弗格森事件，氣候變遷，黑人的命也是命運動，以及親眼目睹加薩的慘烈屠殺，艾爾‧阿卡德得出結論：西方承諾的很多東西其實都是謊言。西方永遠會有一群人，從未打算將世界上的某些人視為「人」——不僅僅是阿拉伯人、穆斯林或移民，而是所有那些不在特權邊界之內的人。

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This是對這一痛苦認識的紀實，是一種道德上的掙扎，反思作為美國公民、作為父親，在一個充滿屠殺的時代中如何尋找任何的可能性。

這是奧馬爾‧艾爾‧阿卡德的Non-Fiction處女作，是他迄今最為真實和脆弱的作品，一封帶著心碎的告別信，與西方世界的告別。這本書準確地表達了我們在全美國所見的同樣的分裂：在家庭房間、在大學校園、在城市街頭；這場分裂的後果才剛剛開始。本書是為那些渴望比西方所提供的更好的東西的人準備的，是為了這個時代的書。

From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values

On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.

As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.

This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.