Groundviews

News Without Terror

Photo courtesy of Arab News

The reporter gives us news and despite

the agony in details: shrapnel killing

kids, hospitals, schools and mosques

bombed with two thousand pound

 

projectiles, almost two million people

displaced, hounded, on the run, we feel

order conserved, written into the lede,

helmet emblazoned with the white

 

word press, its voice trusted

on television, the internet. But

this pounding from sky and land

twists truth: reporter too the target,

 

and the silence of lambs after

slaughter goal of the terror, where

nobody can feel safe, even if

they carry white flags or helmets:

 

more than 100 journalists killed

in three months of butchery;

aid administrators, doctors,

teachers and poets silenced.

 

When can these and taxi

drivers, and donkey riders,

and dentists and all other

workers, also diminished,

 

go back to their routes

and root canals, markets

and classrooms, in the open

air now,  without terror?

Exit mobile version