Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Burns Night
    • Scotland’s Makar
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • Nat 5 and Higher poems
    • Dyslexia-friendly lesson plans
    • Poems in Scots for schools
    • Rannan Chloinne / Children’s Verses
    • Nua-Nòs Gaelic Resources
    • Poems in English for schools
    • Scots poems for bairns
    • Posters
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Organising a cultural event at the SPL
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
  • Shop
    • SPL Shop
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • FAQs
    • Company papers
    • Jobs & Volunteering
    • Find us
    • Contact us
    • Making a complaint
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Diomède Niyonzima
  • >
  • Ingo tubane
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Ingo tubane

Diomède Niyonzima

Ingo tubane mu mahoro
Duhane amahoro ntiduhane imihoro
Ingo tureke gupfa ubusa nk’abasazi
Dusangire naho tudasa
Dusangire uburaro n’uburamuko.

Nta kamaro ko kumarana
Ubwoko bwaremwe n’lmana
Ubwoko ntibwona kandi ntibwonona
Ntawukwiye kubuzira
Amazuru ntaturira amazu.

Ubwoko ntibugahone
Umututsi ntagatuzwe
Umuhutu ntagahunge
Umutwa ntagatwazwe umukazo
Ubwoko n’amashugwe asharije Uburundi.
Ihorere ntuhogore
Ntitwihore ntitworonka impore
Twiture kuri ba rutunga
Badutunge kandi badutunganirize.

Mbega ubwo bwoko butavura ubworo
Ubwoko uteri bwikoreko ngo wivune umusase
Ubona bukumariye iki?

Duhebe ubwoko
Turwanye ubworo, twijukire ubworozi
Tuzororanirwa
Duhebe umuryano tugarukire umubano
Duhebe gushihana twijukire amashure
Maze amacakubiri tuyace
Tuyace ku mazi
Ejo tuzoyaceko umugani.


Diomède Niyonzima

from Héritiers du Nouveau Monde: Il Te Ressemble (Bujumbura: SN, 2008)

translated by David Shook and Claude Nikondeha

Reproduced by kind permission of the translators.

Tags:

African poetry Burundi peace resilience tolerance

Translations of this Poem

Come and live with me

Come and live with me in peace
We’ll exchange peace instead of hatchets
Let’s stop bickering like madmen
And share in our differences
Share somewhere to sleep, a place to wake up

There is no benefit to murder
People are created by God
It’s not right to graze without permission, to screw things up
It’s not right to murder
Noses don’t burn houses

A people should never perish
Tutsis should never be repressed
Hutus should never be forced to flee
Twas should never be pushed around
People are the beautiful flowers of Burundi
Don’t despair, don’t give up
Revenge is pointless
Let’s seek advice from good listeners
To resolve our differences

What is the point of your contempt
If it won’t cure poverty
If it won’t fill your stomach?

Let’s forget tribes
Let’s fight poverty
Let’s till the land and tend our goats

We will find peace
Let’s quit fighting and live together
Stop gossiping to study
So we can stop division
Stop it at its source
Tomorrow we’ll share this as our story

About this poem

This poem, representing Burundi, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Diomède Niyonzima

More about Diomède Niyonzima

Join

Become a Borrower or support our work by becoming a Friend of SPL.
Join us

Online Shop

Browse our range of poetry books, cards and gifts in our online shop. Free UK shipping over £20.
Shop now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy (UK)
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2026.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library
Manage Consent

To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

We use privacy-focused tracking technologies to help us understand and improve the experience of our visitors. We track activity, not users, but you can still object to this tracking via our cookie policy.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
View preferences
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}