All religions and beliefs agree about one thing. We all descend from the same father and mother, often referred to as Adam and Eve. I am therefore writing this open letter to my Turkish brother Erdogan. The letter is actually intended for all my Turkish brothers and sisters. I am your Dutch brother.
A most severe incident has occured in your country.
Some have in their hatred and lack of respect, opened a direct and violent attack on you and your government. They have sought to kill you. They have killed those who shared your convictions. They would rather have killed you as well.
In the wake of all this, all now depends on insight and wisdom. Your response will decide your future and your countries.
None of this can happen without invoking fierce emotions from within you. You may feel like seeking an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The basis would be a most primal emotion. One should not would act on the basis of a primal emotion. A very understandable, but imperfect emotion.
Your government will eventually cease to be. Only policies that behold wisdom and justice will stand in time. It is useless to build a house or anything else, if it is not perfectly founded.
I would therefore like to ask my Turkish brother to seek wisdom, especially in this hour. Not the human like wisdom, but the kind that by its nature resides from He who created the Heavens and the Earth. Those two are after all properly founded.
All religions agree on one thing. God is love. Love is a perfect bond of unity. Please act on the basis of the love for God and your neighbor. This is also the first and greatest commandment, according to Isa (Jesus). All other holy commandments are interpretations of this first and most holy commandment.
Someone once asked Isa whom he should consider to be his neighbor. Isa gave (being Jewish) as an example the good Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans maintained no ties with one another. The cause was a deeply rooted religious conflict.
The good older Samaritan man, being a father, moved by pity, mercifully nursed a young but dying Jewish man. Despite the hatred between the two people, he took care of an almost dying young man and saved his life.
Please act toward your (hating) neigbor as this good Samaritan would. Your enemies do not know what they are doing.
Please be slow with wrath and full of loving kindness. Just as God allows soft rain to drip on the righteous and unrighteous on a hot day. The hatred your enemies have shown will not stand. Punish the guilty, but not out of proportion. Practise only the laws you agreed upon, before your anger came to be.
Insight in a cause will surely slow wrath. It is magnificence from your side to let a transgression against you and/or your government to come to pass.
Why did your enemies respond so hateful? Take the cause of it away, if it is within your power to do so. Many of those that are hostile toward you will attribute this to you as justice. They will listen to you again. And why wouldn't they? You also listen to their arguments. Demonstrate justice and wisdom. No one in their right mind will then want to cause you harm.
Pray often to the God of Abraham. Seek His guidance in your decisions. If you sincerely love your country and our brothers and sisters that reside in it, than I wish you to have Solomon's wisdom.
This last reservation I only write down, because I dont know you personally and also because I cannot read your heart. Wishing someone to have Solomon's wisdom, is by no means a small thing.
