The poet Souéloum Diagho is from Tessalit in the North of Mali. His father is Tamashek, his mother Fula. He writes in the tradition of the controversial eighth century Arabic poet Ghaylan ibn ‘Uqbah. His poetry gives us a view of the Tamashek as they see themselves: a more useful thing than another reduction of recent events.
Souéloum Diagho writes and publishes in French. I have translated one of his poems, Les grands pays.
His book, Trace de Lune is available here.
Les grands pays / The Great Nations
Souéloum Diagho
Il y a les grands, l’Amérique et la Russie,
et les petits qu’on n’épelle jamais.
Il y a les pays où l’eau coule,
et les autres qui rêvent de leur côté,
il y a ceux qui parlent et font leur publicité
et ceux qui cherchent à s’en sortir.
Il y a l’Indien et le targui,
le pygmée et l’enfant atteint de choléra.
Il y a la paix et la colère qui bout sans interruption
comme une marmite avec son ragoût de misère,
et son contenu ce sont les tripes des malheureux,
ces gens abandonnés par ceux-là même qui se disent grands.
Il y a ce petit pays entouré d’un paysage désertique,
son simple aveu est qu’un oil coule d’un rocher,
une source d’eau vive pour apaiser la soif
qui perdure depuis des lunes,
il ne fait pas concurrence
à ces grands pays
dont l’orgueil est satanique
Les grands sont de plus en plus grands,
et les petits deviennent encore plus petits,
il faut un troisième pour répartir la chance du milieu,
comme l’O.N.U, mais avec plus de liberté,
et une grande justice de la Haye
qui prendrait en compte les dires
de ces opprimés qui se comptent par milliers.
Translation:
There are the Great, America and Russia,
And the small, never spelled out.
There are nations where water flows,
And others dreaming of their own share of the world,
There are the talkers, pushing their agendas
And those seeking to escape.
There are Indian and the Tuareg,
The Pygmies and the children with cholera.
There is peace and rage, constantly boiling
In a pot, a stew of misery,
In it are the guts of the discontent,
The people abandoned by those who call themselves Great.
There is this little country surrounded by a desert landscape,
All it shows for itself is oil flowing from a rock
A spring of living water to quench the thirst
Lasting for many moons,
it does not compete with the Great Nations
And their satanic pride.
The Great grow Greater
The small again become even smaller,
We need a third way, the chance to reconsider the status quo,
Such as the UN, but with more freedom,
And greater justice in the Hague that considers
The statements of those oppressed in their thousands.
This poem frightens me for the reason that it shows such a gulf between what is reported about Mali and what he (and I take him to be representative) sees and perceives. There seems to be such an unawareness of the spiritual element amongst the people versus the taking of some village or hamlet.
So, this raises the question: what are Afghani, Irani and Iraqi poets saying? Do they perceive their worlds in any fashion the same as what the outside world perceives? I’m afraid to know for what I fear will be a shocking answer.Report
Allow me to rephrase your question somewhat: what are the Pashtun, Baha’i and Kurdish poets saying? They are the small, never spelled out. And while they remain so, they will all feel similarly.Report
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Read, and understand.Report
Not my style of poetry, but, hey, how often do I get introduced to Taureg poets? Thanks for translating this and making it available for us.Report
There is great meaning within the empty spaces of this poem.
I do not know how well the translation is, not speaking french,
but I thank you for bringing these words to us.Report
There are parts which don’t move well into English. Diagho means for us to see choléra, cholera, in contrast with colère, rage. Both happen in the guts, you see, the superficial peace outside, the boiling guts within.
There’s also this: une source d’eau vive pour apaiser la soif / qui perdure depuis des lunes, The Tamashek use a lunar calendar. I glossed it as “many moons” when it should probably carries some implication of “lasting month after month”, for the springs dry up and so will the oil in time.
And I’m not particularly happy with pour répartir la chance du milieu, coming out as the chance to reconsider the status quo, though it works reasonably well. There’s something about the “luck of the draw” in there, the way things ended up, the completely arbitrary division of Africa, especially the Sahara, where the Tuareg never got a country.
I did the best I could with it. Borges says the original is never faithful to the translation. I tried to carry the freight of rage and sense of injustice in the poem.Report
I tried to carry the freight of rage and sense of injustice in the poem.
Whatever your other frustrations with the translation, you indisputably succeeded in that goal.Report
The United Nations was deliberately founded to enable the great powers to enforce the world order, precisely because the rather more optimistic League of Nations had completely failed to deal with the resurrection of hostilities. The great powers simply did not want the expense of going to war with rogue states, especially if those rogues were not particularly threatening, at least initially.
Hence why the UN Security Council privileges the interests of the great powers. The lack of ‘freedom’ is deliberate. And the world’s powers must participate in the UN process – attempting to flounce out in a huff, as the Axis powers did with the LoN, can much more easily lead to the UN declaring war on your puppet, as the USSR learnt with the Korean War.Report
I think I know what “never spelled out” means–but I’m not sure.Report
Okay, et les petits qu’on n’épelle jamais.. The antique French construction, espeler was clearer, for it meant “explain”, much as we say “Do I have to spell this out for you?”
Tamashek has its own alphabet and they call their own country Azawad. But nobody will ever spell it out and put it on a nice little title bar on a desk at the UN, like all the other countries.Report
BP I can’t express how much I appreciate you bringing this to a wider (and English) audience. Seriously, sir, thank you.Report
Perhaps I should translate a few more of his poems.Report
Yes!Report
If you feel moved to do so I’d definitely appreciate it.Report