Ouvrez les frontières [English translation]

Open the borders, open the borders!

You come each year, summer and winter

And we, we always welcome you with open arms

You are at home here

It doesn't matter after all

We want to leave,

so open the door for us!

Open the borders, open the borders!

From Cape Town to Gibraltar

There are thousand of us who, like you,

want to come without appointments

We want to travel

and work too

But we have not

refused your visa applications.

Open the borders, open the borders!

We too want to have the opportunity to study,

the opportunity to achieve our dreams,

to have a good job,

to be able to travel

get to know what you call 'freedom'!

We want our families to no longer lack anything,

we want to live the life where we one eat's their fill,

we want to leave this daily misery for good.

We want to leave this place because we are all going nuts!!

Open the borders, open the borders!

Let us pass!!!

There is no longer a drop of water

to fill our buckets

Not even a drop of rain

at the bottom of the wells!

When the stomach is empty,

on the way to school,

one fine day, he decides

to take off.

Open the borders, open the borders!

Let us pass!

Open the door,

we are suffocating here!!

Plenty of us want the western dream!

Open the door,

the youth are struggling here!

Don't you see that for us it is vital?

Open the borders, open the borders!

Let us pass!

You've taken our beaches

and their golden sand,

put the animals in cages,

cut down our forests,

What do we have left?

When one has empty hands?

We are preparing for the journey

and we throw ourselves into the void!

Open the borders, open the borders!

Let us pass!

• Artist:Tiken Jah Fakoly
• Album:L'Africain