“Not Your Al Jazeera”
Don't speak my name
through satellite teeth.
Don’t broadcast me
in headlines you never lived.
You say: Al Jazeera —
but that’s not what my mother whispered
when she washed the dust from my feet.
You made Jazira a studio,
a script,
an Arab echo chamber
that edits me out.
But my Jazira
is not your news desk.
It’s cracked soil and stubborn olive trees,
Kurdish lullabies rising through broken radio static,
a grandmother who never learned
the language of the occupier
but still knew how to forgive.
Your “Al Jazeera” has lights,
but my Jazira has fire.
Yours has anchors.
Mine has roots.
You borrowed the name.
I was born from it.
So don’t you dare call it yours.
Because every time you say it,
you forget me —
but I remember.