On Sunday, 18 May 2025, I marched with 100,000 human beings in The Hague, the Netherlands. We marched in a long Red Line against the genocide in Gaza. I walked most of the way with tears in my eyes; profoundly touched by this show of humanity. 
On Monday, 19 May 2025, I wrote the lyrics for a song titled, This Red Line. 
On Tuesday, 20 May 2025, I picked up my guitar and improvised a melody, clean slate, and recorded only one take on my iPad. This is it.
Today, Wednesday, 21 May 2025, I publish this song as my tribute to the people of Gaza and to all the human beings I marched with on Sunday, 18 May 2025. It is raw and unpracticed and far from perfect. But I feel in it the pain I have experienced since 7 October 2023, and the overwhelming power of humanity I so intensely felt during that historic march in The Hague, when the human beings in the Netherlands said, ‘No more genocide! Never again!’

This Red Line - Lyrics
In shadows deep where hatred breeds,
A whisper turns to violent deeds.
A people marked, a target set,
Humanity begins to fret.
 
The signs are there, the words take hold,
A story tragically unfolds.
As we gaze up at darkened skies
As fields turn red, and tongues are tied
 
But there's a line, a crimson thread,
Where life is sacred, fear is dead.
This line we hold, with hearts ablaze,
Against the darkness, through the haze.
No further step, no inch will yield,
On hallowed ground, on battlefield.
Genocide's shadow shall not reign,
This line we hold, again, again.
 
The cries unheard, the pleas ignored,
As innocence is stripped and gored.
The world looks on, a silent shame,
While precious lives are put to flame.
 
But deep within, a fire starts,
To mend the broken, bind the hearts.
A human voice calls out with No! 
Its echo sounds cross bloody lands
 
And there's a line, a crimson thread,
Where life is sacred, fear is dead.
This line we hold, with hearts ablaze,
Against the darkness, through the haze.
No further step, no inch will yield,
On hallowed ground, on battlefield.
Genocide's shadow shall not reign,
This line we hold, again, again.
 
It's not just borders on a map,
It's in the silence, in the gap
Between our words and what we do,
The promise we must see it through.
For every soul unjustly lost,
A heavy, bitter, human cost.
 
And there's a line, a crimson thread,
Where life is sacred, fear is dead.
This line we hold, with hearts ablaze,
Against the darkness, through the haze.
No further step, no inch will yield,
On hallowed ground, on battlefield.
Genocide's shadow shall not reign,
This line we hold, again, again.

This line we hold...
Against the darkness...
Again... again...


This Red Line

Heinrich Dahms, alias Babún @babunmusic (www.babunmusic.com), is a filmmaker, guitarist & song-writer from South Africa based in the Netherlands. Co-owner of film production company BUZZMEDIA NETWORK (www.buzzmedia.net).