This moring I read a lecture of Ryszard Kapuscinski on Encoutering the Other. I just found the English translation on the internet. He starts with a historical overview of how the earliest human groups discovered there were other people in the world, and how to behave:

“The discovery that there are other people in the world! [...] Then it turned out that [...] other similar beings, other people, also inhabited the world! But how to behave in the face of such a revelation? What to do? What decision to make?
[1. war] Should they throw themselves in fury on those other people?
It might end up in a duel, a conflict or a war. Proof of man’s failure—that he did not know how, or did not want, to reach an understanding with Others.
[2. building walls] Or walk past dismissively and keep going?
This family-tribe decides to fence itself off from others, to isolate and separate itself. This attitude leads, over time, to objects like the Great Wall of China, the towers and gates of Babylon, the Roman limes and or the stone walls of the Inca.
[3. dialogue] Or rather try to get to know and understand them?”
There is [..] proofs of cooperation—the remains of marketplaces, of ports, of agoras and sanctuaries, of seats of old universities and academies, and of where there remain vestiges of trade routes. All of these were places where people met to exchange thoughts, ideas and merchandise, and where they traded and did business, concluded covenants and alliances, and discovered shared goals and values. “The Other” stopped being a synonym of foreignness and hostility, danger and mortal evil. People discovered within themselves a fragment of the Other, and they believed in this and lived confidently.”

It is so simple, but it really helps me to see how different countries deal with the fear for the “new unknown”, the islam, in the case of many westerners. The US choosing to fight, the Netherlands choosing to build walls around the country. And then the third option, the one I and many others favor.