rené’s Reviews > One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This > Status Update

“Maybe there was never work, only a passing through time and consequence. Maybe we don’t read writers so much as become deeply acquainted with the sites of their passing, or their refusal to pass. What they thought beautiful or grotesque enough to document. Where they chose to expend their finite capacity for concern.”

Wow.

The anecdote about the courtroom in Guantanamo Bay was harrowing— to say that legal proceedings are not correct there, despite them being US courtrooms, is surprising, but is not at the same time.

The analysis of the American identity of “scrappy righteousness” was insightful and masterful— not a contradiction but a form of artificial self-interest. To me, that stems from their separation from Britain.

The comments on language are so insightful.

The inadequacy of language and the West’s “abilities” in general, despite always being portrayed as better than that of the Third World, will never accurately describe humanity. Be it through the language of technology, or the language of the press. There is always an oppressive power it exacts over the Third World but that simply shows its glaring weaknesses.

“Who sided with justice and who sided with power?”
I think that, to fascist voters, you need to side with power to side with justice. That is what they have been indoctrinated to believe.
The writer uses such beautiful and subtle turns of phrase to implicitly portray Western perspectives of foreign countries. I feel like I’m reading an unseen text for English Language GCSE.

I was appalled to hear that Hamas has been propped up by Netanyahu to disguise political failings, but it makes so, so much sense.

The analysis of American politics is so accurate. “It can’t be both rhetorical urgency and policymaking impotence”. Climate change, Palestine, the Supreme Court, transphobia— we hate these things, but we will do naught about them.

A really masterful take on the two tiers of journalism, written by a journalist.

I knew about the journalists killed in Gaza and the Western ones who spout platitudes from an ivory tower. This chapter deepened my understanding and made me realise that this is a necessity in journalism.

The narrative about Gaza was an emotional one, and a really thought-provoking one. It angers me so much that this is how we have to write about people. Human beings. We have to talk about them in a polite and palatable way when some of them are being slaughtered and others are running the slaughterhouse.

A lot of the things in the book resonate with me. The idea of being so distanced from my mother and father’s culture, written from the perspective of my mother. It makes me wonder whether or not they feel that way about me.