Dear Sombath,
We’ve never met, but that is unimportant, for we know each other well enough. I see you in all good people, and the truth of it is that we are all one. We have the same aims, and we always see family in strangers. We work together for the community, both locally and on a wider level. Sadly, not everyone works with us in this way, and you will be more aware of this than most, but we must continually remind ourselves that those who abuse others are invariably deeply damaged in one way or another and cannot help but behave the way they do. All such damaged people are in need of help, and we must keep searching for ways to reach out to them.
Since you disappeared, your work has not stopped. If anything, the result of you being stolen away from us is that your work has spread more widely. Your name has become a word of power, passed from person to person as inspiration to keep up the fight to improve life for the poor and to spread education to multiply that power. It is ironic that so much of this great power comes from the very people who took you away from us, and it only grows in strength with every passing day so long as they fail to return you to us. Do not fear that you have been removed from the action and that your work has halted, because you are still right at the centre of it driving things along: the more absent you are, the more strongly you are with us and the harder we work. Your name is known now around the entire planet, and it provides motivation and hope to all those who are struggling in darkness, searching for the light. “Sombat,” we say to each other to remind ourselves that we have important work to do (your work), and that we will win out in the end. Yes – we are all Sombat now.
I hope to meet you some day, but you are already with me in spirit, and I hope I am likewise with you. I wish you all the best,
David Cooper