Cultures and Psychology APS IG Newsletter - APS Member Groups

Cultures and Psychology APS IG Newsletter
April
2012
The Jewslim and Me “In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is best
teacher”. Dalai Lama
By Lyn Benson
Counselling Psychologist, Melbourne
Mobile 0417 114520 www.lynbenson.com.au
I always thought of myself as tolerant, unbiased and accepting. And then the
phone call came. My first clue that something was up was the colour of my
son’s face. Puce if I remember correctly. He handed the phone to me and my 19
year old daughter announced from Lombok Island that she was engaged to
marry her Muslim boyfriend - a chicken farmer to be exact.
We had met him once on a holiday to Lombok Island and thought he was quite
sweet, kind, came from a huge family and had a brother who was some kind of
Medicine Man, but of no significance really. My daughter would grow tired of
him or he would realize that they were two different people from two different
worlds. I never actually entertained the idea that we would have to "accept"
him as one of our own. Out of the range of possibilities and therefore out of my
conscious awareness.
A year later, I found myself suddenly and abruptly filled with fear for my only
daughter and with a formidable Jewish family in the background; I became
overwhelmed with challenges to my own belief system, the pull of the
obligations of my history and culture, and the desire to be comfortable but
stagnant in the company of the familiar.
This was pre 9/11 but we still had our stereotypes, not the least being Sally
Fields’ rendition of a mother trying to rescue her kidnapped children from Iran
in "Not without my Daughter”. In fact my sister even kindly dropped over a
copy of the video for me to watch just in case I was unaware of the dangers my
daughter now faced if I “allowed” her to marry this boy from Mars. Anyway
what would a 19 and 20 year old know about love?
But this was not a story being related to me in my office by a distraught client
or an academic piece of research. This was about me, my only daughter, my
family, my world.
I decided that I needed to find out what we were dealing with so my son
organized an interview with the Indonesian Consulate who tried to allay my
fears. It never once occurred to me how patronising I must have sounded to this
gentleman who was confronted with an educated, passionate and now somewhat
Culture and Psychology APS IG Newsletter July 2011 Page 6