3. Identify different strategies for mediation and solving the conflict as a mediator
My first solving action as an intercultural or inter-religious mediator would be to talk to Jorge’s parents, and make them aware they are going to be in constant encounter with their grandsons and ask them if they are willing to fully accept Jorge and Teresa’s grandsons as they do with the other grandsons, without making noticeable differences. Even though within their system of values being a real Jewish means being born both from Jewish mother and father, they should also be willing not only to tolerate them but also to try to integrate them into the family activities whether religious or social, as it would be better for the family harmony to show affection for these children because those small ethnical and religious differences do not represent any superiority or inferiority for an agreeable and peaceful relationship with all the members of the big family.
The following step would be to talk also to Jorge so that he can have the reinforcing role of this initiative of respect and integration for his own kids. Teresa should be aware that this initiative would represent a complete integration of his kids into a Jewish society, it means that being in contact with their other Catholic cousins they will also feel different, but at least they will be fully integrated into one family and will stop wandering from being accepted into one or another. She should also be aware that in the moment she decided to convert into his husband’s religion the education of his kids would tend to be into the Jewish one, despite the fact all her family from her mother’s side, the one she is in more contact, was educated in the Catholic tradition.
I consider this case has been a long suffered situation for the different members of this family, and it might probably take a time to experiment a positive change in this complex situation. That is why, apart from the possible theoretical key instruments to solve an intercultural/inter-religious situation, I believe that the basis of a successful respect for “the other” who in a certain way is different to oneself, would also be the development of a concrete ideology abundant in concepts of respect, considering the element of diversity as a key value to carry out a harmonious and rich intercultural or inter-religious encounter.
Therefore, I consider that respect and appreciation for a different culture or religion, are very important values to make people aware, as we are in a critical point of the world history of immigration and constant mobility of peoples, encounter with an enormous and varied cultural diversity. Though I am also aware, this ideology could take a time to be digested and adopted for natural reasons of ethnocentrism, respect for the own system of values, defence of the native territory, etc.
On the other hand, another personal point of view is an urgent need for an important update of the main traditional religions, according to the critical and tense social and political world situations. The emergence of new religions with the combination of both traditional religious values creating an interesting religious syncretism, the so-called availability of “supermarket of religions5” is a clear example of this religious need to bring to the latest state of modernization or modern awareness of what is actually going on around the world, specially to recover a lost of spirituality visible in the nowadays sometimes materialistic humanity.
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