TAFAT 
Amazigh( Berber) Poems
Poetry written and read by Ali Akkache, Music composed by Fatah Kaci and Ali Akkache, based on traditional music of the Kabylia region of Algeria. Arranged by Fatah Kaci and Ken Cheetham”The Cheek Man”

Cover Design by Tahar Boukaroui

Instrumentation:

Mondole, Bendir, Flute, Guitar Synthesizer: Fatah Kaci

Keyboards:
Ken Cheetham”The Cheek Man”

Derbouka:
Henni Hached, Fatah kaci

Vocals:
Ali Akkache, Fatah Kaci

Translations from Tamazight (Berber) to English:
Renée Bornstein, Fatah Kaci & Ali Akkache

Recorded and mixed
by Ken Cheetham.
The Smaller Room Studio, Berkeley, California USA

Thanks to: Fatah and his family, Tahar Boukaroui, Ken Cheetham, Linda Bogaczyk, Renée Bornstein, Henni Hached, Rabah Seffal, Mokrane Bouakiz, Khaled Bounar, Blanca Madani.

I also wish a good health and long life to mommy Bogaczyk and Tom.

I am grateful for the Amazigh language, and all those who work to keep it alive, as it gives me this opportunity to write and to make the first CD of Amazigh poems.

This CD is dedicated to all Imazighenes (berbers) in the World.

Contact Ali Akkache: Assefru@aol.com

1-CWAL (Violence)

Violence and terror will cause a man to leave his country, his family, his job--everything he knows. The Imazighen who have left Algeria live a life in between cultures, like zombies moving through a world not their own.

The violence brings us here
This is why we left the country
The violence brings us here
Be sad olive tree
The violence brings us here
The day we slammed the door

O my heart you did not enjoy life
And you were blamed
You are like the anvil under hammers
If you miss one the other gets you
You are just avoiding the days
You do not know where you are going

You lost the taste of honey
You get only the bitter
O body what has happened to you?
You are empty of life
The heart that used to beat
Today, it is being beaten

You are in a temporary situation
The days are racing
You are neither here or there
You harvest only the wind
You were sacrificed like a pigeon
They still live; you were exterminated

2-Tamurt (My land)

This is the lament of a son for his mother country, when he sees her changed beyond recognition by kidnapers and feels forced to emigrate.

In you, there is nothing left for me
But my heart has always been yours
I feel all the problems distressing you
Your burdens have become mine,
Weighing me down
As if I carried a heavy load

Today I am breaking with you
Since you do not seem to know me
Today I am breaking with you
I have no choice left but to leave

Just as a man and a woman leave each other
I cut the ties with you my land, as a son leaving his parents
Just as brothers sometimes do
Like a tree whose roots are torn from the Earth

If I separate from you, it is only today
You yourself have ignored me since long ago
Ever since you were taken, I have lived in you as a stranger

They kidnapped you like a bride
But you never reached the house of your groom
Yesterday’s takeovers dilute us today

In you, I was born
In you, I played
In you, I fell and got up
In you, I learned to hope, and learned impatience
In you, I learned to love, and learned to hate

How full were my eyes
When you prospered
When you were the envy of all
Replete with fine palaces
How empty now my eyes, with only dreams of past glory
You are so vast, but where can I walk in you now, what place is left for me?

What is left in you today
Is hunger and violence
Death is knocking at the door
It has already taken so many
Each day brings more graves to dig
So many, we’ve lost count

We live to see the lopping off heads
Blood is mixed with tears
The only sound is the lamentation of the old
The only sight is the swollen ranks of orphans
Hatred has taken hold of us
How can we shake off the curse?

A day will come
When ancestors will rise from their graves
They will stand together
And they will blame you

A day will come
When those who have taken you, my land
Will one day face justice

A day will come
When the heads that fell
Will face the hands that cut them off

A day will come
When the light will overcome the darkness
And shine throughout you, my land

A day will come
When from separation we will reunite

A day will come
When you will recognize me and I you

My land…

3-HANUN ZANUN (Turning around)

Changing things without making the right decision is impossible. The Amazigh community today is fictionalized into many groups. We are not making an effort to focus on the Amazigh language and our culture. We need solidarity and union.

Turning around
Like a cat near the fire place
Turning around
Repeating the same word
Turning around
From where they leave, they return

Do not cook the bones a second time
Change the story, please.
What’s this turning around?
Stop complaining about yesterday
Now it is today
The day begins. Wake up!

You know the word is like money
Spend it where it works
If you have time
Me, I do not have time for those stories
I am more concerned with the return of Unity
I am affected by its inundation