The Moment of Stepping Down: Me, Them, and Al Jazeera

Al-Musallami Al-Bashir Al-Kabbashi

The second of February 2026, the night of mid-Sha‘ban 1447 AH, marks my final day in the service of the Al Jazeera Media Network, after twenty-one years as Director of its Sudan Bureau since 2005, preceded by a year at its headquarters in Doha.
Al Jazeera, just as it continually makes the news, renders both belonging to it and departing from it a matter of news—something people are keen to know about. And though my organic affiliation with it has spanned twenty-two years, the horizons of life today open, upon leaving it, to a new world.

If God, in pre-eternity, chose for us this profession—which I have always described as “headstrong”, given the troubles and hardships that surround it—I thank Him for decreeing that my fate be tied to this colossal institution, the Al Jazeera Media Network. It has been a luminous chapter in my professional life. Not only was it the longest journey of my journalistic career; it was an exceptional journey of learning and perseverance. For to be Director of Al Jazeera’s Sudan Bureau is to remain perpetually stretched across tightropes of tension in a country that has tasted stability for long stretches, and to occupy a position battered by storms from every direction. Our commitment to professional values led destiny to carry us to detention centres more than once.

Working at Al Jazeera means moving across different climates, yet its most enduring hallmark is progress through waves and eras of development, each with its own character and flavour—in concepts and methods alike. In particular, I worked alongside senior colleagues in the profession and learned much from them; among them were leaders greater than titles of “manager” could ever convey. They taught us to delve deep into the social, economic, and political contexts of news, and to penetrate their complex interactions in order to distil meanings that generate a transformative awareness in the course of the nation.

There are many other colleagues with whom bonds of respect, appreciation, and cooperation flowed between us across the editorial and administrative sectors.

Even if the direct, organic link is severed, Al Jazeera inhabits those who pass through it—especially over such a long span. It is a spirit that radiates from every corner, inspiring creativity. You are not a cog in a machine there; you are a partner in building something larger than yourself. Al Jazeera does not leave those who have imbibed it; it is an idea, and ideas do not die. It is a towering school of media thinking, and the time for graduation from it has come, as is the case with every school: it renews its journey with those who arrive while bidding farewell to those who depart. Schools of thought shape the identities of those who belong to them and grant them lenses for thinking and analysis. That is the provision and the enduring imprint of days of toil and nights of hard labour at Al Jazeera. Renewal, being the law of life, is renewal for both the individual and the institution.

To me, Al Jazeera is a civilisational project for the entire nation. It has achieved much in that regard: it has ignited the nation’s longing for freedom and charted paths and methods for the free expression of those longings, despite the hardships of carving routes through the rock of formidable obstacles.

I leave Al Jazeera with nothing in my heart towards it but abundant supplication—that it may continue to ascend, reaching the heights of glory summit after summit; that God may grant it the strength to overcome the impediments, hardships, and tempests that rage around it. It is part of the nation’s destiny in shaping its awareness—and through awareness a nation contends with its fate until God decrees a matter that is destined to be fulfilled.

At the moment of dismounting from Al Jazeera, feelings of gratitude and appreciation overflow—for Al Jazeera, which offered me everything that leads to the pinnacles of success and rectitude; and to my colleagues who supported my journey and enriched it with standards of excellence, whether at the network’s centre or alongside me in the blaze of the field, in a land of ever-rising suns and unrelenting furnaces, to which war has added a fuel that only intensifies the flames.
My deepest thanks and appreciation also go to the State of Qatar, which hosted Al Jazeera, held its reins, and patiently endured its excesses—as one endures a glowing ember settled in the palm. It has paid, generously, its political bill in a world unsettled by the likes of Al Jazeera.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=10952