Real RAD Reads

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This book has been on my list for a minute. I’ve been waiting for it to be available from the library. Based on the title of the book, I was sure I was about to get a lesson in the evils of imperialism.

It was sooo close.

This book is mostly a personal history with a bit of a critique of the western empire. If you’re looking to understand how we got to the first live-streamed genocide – this isn’t it.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some value here. There is.

Omar El Akkad’s message that there will come a time that it will be safe and even commonplace to say they were against this injustice. I absolutely agree with the message here. The problem I have is that, for me, it was very surface level. I wanted it to dig deeper and it just didn’t.

Maybe part of the issue here is that I already know that I live in the most powerful empire to have ever existed. I know there is tremendous privilege to be on this side of the missiles. My tax dollars are bombing and starving children. I also know that there is only one word that fits this injustice – genocide.

I wonder if this was written for the everyday American who might not be ready to use the word.

This book was written while Biden was in office. While this next quote could be attributed to any of our presidents, I believe he is speaking of Biden as he writes:

To watch the leader of the most powerful nation on earth endorse and finance a genocide prompts not a passing kind of disgust or anger, but a severance. The empire may claim fear of violence because a fear justifies any measure of violence in return, but this severance is of another kind – a walking away. A non-involvement with a machinery that would produce or allow to produce such horror.

I appreciate that Omar’s writing invites you see the injustice from the perspective of a middle eastern man living in the west (Canada and the US) – and then asks that you reconcile it against how we are to see our country. It’s the greatest country to have ever existed, right? Then why are we doing this? Any of this? If we are great. If we have ever been great, why are we actively starving children? Why are we bombing schools, churches and hospitals? Would the greatest country to have ever existed do any of these things?

I can’t give this much more than 3 stars. It’s a personal history – if I knew that, I think I would have enjoyed the book for what it was.

RAD Rating:

It doesn’t seem right to leave this as it is and just move on to the next one. The situation in Palestine is too important to just say ‘Byeeee’ and pick up the next book.

I’m doing a bit of a dive and reading (and re-reading) two other books on Palestine. Both written by Palestinians. The next two posts (I post every Sunday) will be covering these two books:

• The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi and
• Perfect Victims by Mohammed El-Kurd

There might be another one to end out September, depends on if it becomes available in enough time to read it!

Stay RAD and read something new.

Byeeee!