The Great Nations: a Tuareg Poem

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.