AS you go through life, the impressions books, music and movies have on you shape your very being. I was a 16-year-old worker in the Michael Forde Bookshop of the PPP and my encounter with the works of Karl Marx has contributed to my outlook on how countries should organise the sharing of wealth.

All philosophers have weak points that you can successfully demonstrate (although I fail to see the weakness in Martin Heidegger’s argument for existentialism). Marx made a huge impression on me and though I would not endorse some of his perspectives, I think there is a lot in Marx that leads to a better understanding of how countries should treat its people.

At an early age, I was exposed to the films of Costa Gavras; and I think his movies helped to mould me into the indefatigable human rights activist that I am. I was 18 years old when the Hollies’ mega hit struck the world. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,’’ is a song that has changed my life forever since I first heard it as a long-hair hippie boy from Wortmanville.

Last month, I had a Neil Diamond CD in the car stereo driving aimlessly in Good Hope while waiting for my wife to complete her visit to her cousin.

“He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” came on and from since I was 18, when I hear it, that song does things to me. When it plays, I think of the innate limitation of Homo Sapiens, the cruelty of the world and the fragility of everything.

For the past month, I have been seeing images from different news sources of genocide taking place in Gaza perpetrated by a Jewish country whose people were once the victims of horrible genocide, not in the 17th or 18th century but as recent as 1933 to 1945.

If anything has convinced me that the world can see another form of slavery as what the Europeans did to Africa, another war worst than WW2, another Holocaust, an apartheid system that will make the South African version look like fun in a swimming pool, it is the genocide currently taking place in Gaza.

What is happening in Gaza is that one ethnic group is flying jet fighters over a land inhabited by another race of people and simply killing them by the thousands. And in the rubble lie thousands of babies and the women who gave birth to them. I read literally countless books on slavery and Nazi Germany. I cannot, up to this day, in my soul, understand how those two forms of genocide could have taken place. These were genocide committed by one race against another because of different racial species.

We thought the world would never see such a sight again, then, it happened in Rwanda. We thought after Rwanda, the world would never tolerate another genocide. Right now, I am seeing genocide right in front of my eyes brought to my home through transmission of the images by television and social media.

What is unbearable (and this is a mild word for it), is how Palestinians would pick up the wounded and carry them on their backs as the sound of jet fighters roar overhead. For thousands of Palestinians the injured is not a burden to bear. They are hoisted on the back of brave men desperately looking for a resting place.

As I look at the Palestinians being put to death by the thousands, my thoughts are straying back to Hitler and his Nazi party. They killed the Jews while the world did nothing. But at least the world was silent. We have dozens of countries that are actively in support of genocide in Gaza. Please watch those images of brave Palestinian souls lifting the injured to safety, then listen to the song below.

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
Composed and sung by The Hollies
The road is long
With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where, who knows where
But I’m strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We’ll get there

For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
If I’m laden at all

I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart
Isn’t filled with the gladness
Of love for one another
It’s a long, long road

From which there is no return
While we’re on the way to there
Why not share?
And the load
Doesn’t weigh me down at all

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
He’s my brother
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother