Thanks for joining us, welcome to another wonderful session at the southern festival of books on behalf of humanitys tennessee be want to thank some of the festival sponsors including the Metro National arts commission, ingram content group, tennessee arcs commission Vanderbilt University and burnett books. If youre watching today on facebook live, or on youtube and you have questions for the authors during the session, you will need to switch over either to the festivals app which you can download in the app store on whatever device youre using, or you go to their website which is hum tn. Org sf be southern festival of books. And then there is a chapter where you can ask questions for the authors at the end of todays session. We want to mention that parnassus is our beloved bookseller for the southern festival of books. And your purchases of the books being debuted this weekend at the festival help keep this festival free. Youll be able to find a link straight to their online store in the chat. Can purchase the book were talk about today or any of the other books you hear about this weekend. I know that your reading list is probably growing long by this point. Festival as you know is free. It is a nonprofit organization. And another way we keep this freeforall attendees is through donations from people who attend. So if you are enjoying the festival and you want to make a donation you can also do that humanity tennessee website hum tn. Org. And there should be a link in the chat to the donation page as well. Today, we are here with michael gray and joe berry time but michaels newest book i am not your enemy from herald press. Michael is an author, educator and facilitator who uses the power of personal stories to heal, make meaning and create connections versus story consultant as well as a storytelling reader hes posted a long running storytelling events. He has a masters degree in compex resolution as currently completing his execution certification and publican narrative from the Harvard Kennedy school. He is joining us from nashville where he lives with his family. Hi michael. Hey christie good to see you. Im also joined today by joe berry who was one of the people whose story is collected and michaels book. Joe is an International Speaker who works to resolve conflict around the world. She is a of the Charities Building bridges for peace which believes and advocates on bounded empathy is biggest weapon we have to end conflict prayer by seeing the humanity in others. She also Restorative Justice facilitator, ted x speaker and visiting with the university of nottingham. Shes currently busy writing her own book. Shes joining us today from england. Hi joe. Hi wonderful to be here. Hi. So michael i thought you could read a little bit from your boo book. Give folks are just out tuning and a Little Information about what it is. Well, it is a real delight to be here. I want to apologize in advance if you hear some background sounds i have two dogs and a five monthold baby downstairs. You never know what is going to come up. So this book, i am not your enemy was really a book about a search for stories that might save us. I wanted to write a book that chronicled my travel through places of deep division, israel, palestine, north island, will places be here their names we think of division. And they wanted the stories that chronicled their to do to think specifically. One, to cultivate empathy. To help us see something in a way we otherwise might not see it. And also to tell the truth about the world. I think part of the truth about the world is at the world is broken, breaking full of burism burisma, burdens, tortures and tears. These things are true and i think theyre very live for a lot of us right now. And i know in my country were in a sense of panic and fear about a lot of things right now. But this is only part of the truth of the world. Another part is the world is full of beauty and friendships, unexpected friendships. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things like joe berry who we are going to hear from soon. I wanted to feature the stories as well to remind us theres more to the world and the pain of the world. So i will read a very brief thing from the introduction that gives you a sense of where the book goes and what it is about. The people and stories in this book can help us for they can show us not just where to look, but how to look. They oriented towards help. In these pages we hear from a Palestinian Peace builder about the dangers of dialogue that does not lead to freedom. We have from a Community Center director and what to do when trauma is stuck with routine rather than stuffed with memories but a former israeli soldier teaches us to name what is wounded rather than ignore the pain. Any mother who lost her son shows us how to refuse vengeanc vengeance. We need a lover of shakespeare who created a haven for beauty for those on the margin. And we encounter people who craft weight stations of refuge for those in need of shelter. We hear how a woman made space in her life of the man who murdered her father. From a youth worker with her reconciliation may mean little if it does not address the surrounding systems of inequality. From a Community Theater director here of life under oppression and the journey to let go of the hatred that plagues us like poison. And from two bereaved fathers, we are invited to imagine how we might devastating loss with grief and action. Theirs are the stories that save us. Save us from believing that violence must be met with violence. Save us from believing that our belonging will be complete only when we take away someone elses. Save us from the prejudice that makes us predators. Save us from the midst of single stories, save us from thinking that more guns and more walls and more armies can save us. They are the stories that might save us from our fear. And so, one of the stories i thought could save us is the story of joe berry. I first heard about joe berry, dont member when it was mr. Reagan documentary beyond right and wrong that featured stories across the world. Joes is one of them. I remember reading in my study of conflict resolution one way to talk about violence is the disruption narrative. This is really true in the story of joe that she was the daughter of a member of the british parliament. And had a story that was unfolding in a way you might expect in other ways you might not expect. But that a bomb went off in 1984, october of 1984 that killed her father. That bomb was planted by men and Patrick Mcgee but was a member of the Irish Republican Army which is a Paramilitary Group in ireland fighting the british. And her story was one about eight person who is pushed to the edges of herself. And had to find a new way to be with herself and to be with her story to reconstruct her story in a way she did not expect she would have to. It was not just the drama and trauma of her story that drew me in. Its what she did with her pain and how she spent years cultivating within herself the capacity, not just sit with Patrick Mcgee would day which she did in their 2000, but to be able to listen to him with curiosity, openness and empathy. Im so her story is one of meeting patrick in 2000 and now, over the last 20 years, they have spoken together over 400 times about how it is that we can live with the people that we find difficult to live with. How it is we can cultivate and imagination of the world where there is no other. We can actually look into the eyes of the person who killed our loved one and be able to say to them, i am not your enemy. Im so thrilled joe was able to join us today to talk about her story. That great. Michael, you mentioned this a moment ago. But the stories you have collected in this book, focus, mostly for us on International Conflicts in israel, palestine, south africa, Northern Island rather than competent or home country of the United States. Was that intentional . And how do you decide on that as a scope for your book . Stu might guess it really was intentional. I think one of the things that often happens for people as we get kind of stuck in her own story. We can develop patterned ways of thinking about our story. Because we live with them all the time. There can be thanks about our stories that we cant see paid we dont notice anymore, that we are blind too. Sometimes we have to encounter similar dynamics of her stories but in other places. In literature they called deep milieu is a very lovely russian word for it, which is other world eyes asian freight so we have to basically take our stories and put them in other worlds so that disruption of whats expect this helps us see with new clarity and new was in the truth and reality about her stories that are around us. And so instead of just telling stories of division in the United States, become bias in the way we might think about those. I wanted to go to other places where we know their places of division between a knot of the stories fully. And let those stories play out. Those stories are similar to stories of our past, stories of our present, stories of whats coming for us. So we can actually see with new wisdom the wounds liberal place that is what he hope the book is able to accomplish. Throughout the book, michael and your story specifically to use the language of dehumanization and re humanization. Would you explain a little bit about what those two things look like . And how they are related to the work of peace building . Stu met joe please why dont you answer first respect they will take you back to 1984. When my father was killed and it was the ira. In the ira that time was completely demonized. There is no way i could understand that story understand why they wanted to use violence. The moment it went off i felt like i have an enemy. And i did not want to and enemy in my life. It was within two days later i decided i was going to understand why someone would join the ira. Why would someone plant a bomb in a hotel and kill people . That was important to me to it hear the story. Now back in 84 there is no way to find that out. I in the middle of the conflicts. It was very hard to hear. At that time i was seeing the enemy i was on the other side was quite a dangerous place to go. So its only when we had the Peace Process everything changed for me. And i wanted to meet patrick. To hear his humanity. To hear his story. I did not go for an apology. I just went to look into his eyes and see him as a human being. Could that would rejuvenate something inside myself. Something the bomba taken away for me. I saw that meeting as a went up. Admit others in the ira is quite sure one conversation would be enough and i would get what i once had. And then i would go in nobody would ever need to know. But that first meeting something happened. And patrick himself started on a journey. He came to that meeting knowing what he had done was passed a military battle that he was justified. He demonized the people in the hotel. He demonized my father. He could only drop that bomb because he didnt think and thats the nature of violent conflicts. Then he met me and began to realize he killed a human being. So my dad came back into the conversation. We had this moment were he is disarmed by my empathy. I knew we had to carry on meeting. There was more there. He change her the man who killed my father to the man who i was speaking with. So i was changing the story. And now, i do call him my frien friend. Weve got lots of shared experience. We been to london we been to palestine and israel. We have been to places he is the only person i know. Ive change the story completely. And yet he is still the man who planted that bomb, that does not go away. What michael did shoot share anything as well . How just say yes. One of the first casualties in conflict i often say is nuance. So whether thats an interpersonal conflict and might have with my wife laurie macro conflict we begin, lose all nuance to her argument our way of thinking about the other people become one. We reduce people or ideas to kind of the monoliths of something single. Thats the project of dehumanization. People are complex even if we dont want to believe they are we are all complex. Though in conflict we typically dehumanize people. Because once we dehumanize people to the single stories about them it becomes much easier to do the harm we need to do. So actually in the book, there is a scale of secretary and danger identify that comes from that talks about how in conflict we can move from really important and innocuous statements like we are different we believe differently. But we move down the scale over time in conflict until we finally get to the 11th point which is your demonic. But we are at that place thats a people place bombs. Thats a people shoot each othe other. And so part of the reconciliation process, part of the peace building process is how we go back and see the humanity. Not just in the others but in our self as well as burden we commit those acts of violence we destroy some part of humanity within us. The fact that is very true. My experience is i can have empathy and i know and patrick i reached a point where if i lived his life, would i have made the same decision teammate . I dont know. And at that point there is no other. And i think other ring starts whenever i start thinking i am right and you are wrong. And i am hurting. I want to blame someone to make someone responsible. That realization can grow and grow and grow. For me the work is a daily task. I cannot get outreach, pain and grievances without making anyone else wrong. That is hard emotional work. See when you talk in the book in the story when you relate to michael when the two of you met in ireland about the emotional work you did on yourself before you first met with patrick. Michael describes this process is building a Firm Foundation on either side dish or before you can build a bridge between yourself and your socalled enemy. Can you talk about what that process of emotional healing look like for you . And why you believe it was an integral part of your peacemaking journey . Student is great to reflect, thats what it was. At the time i had no idea what i was doing. Now im trains i do a lot of restorative processes the whole process people go through before you ever bring two people together with the huge pain. There is nobody to work with me. At that time even though i did try nobody wanted to be part of such a meeting. Early on a Peace Process. My own inner work. I say is about ready for it. I wasnt really ready because how can you be ready for such a huge thing and mean the guy who killed your father. But i knew from day to that i did not want to use my pain to blame anyone. I did know into my pain to hurt anyone. I did not want to go for revenge. So all of those years still with my emotions. As a time when it got a lot of support. That was about theory met Patrick Mcgee. During that year we did a lot of releasing emotions and crying. But i did not use my emotions to make patrick more wrong. I didnt use them to want to hurt him. That was about watching my thoughts. I did find things got difficult in my life and i had on there were times when i wanted to blame him and say he is the reason why this is happening. But that wouldve got me back in the cycle of bombs again and it wanted to end that cycle of revenge. A lot of it was about selfawareness within myself. Site had a lot of conversation inside myself. It was very hard to be there. So is listening to myself will i was listening to patrick. Michael you write about what you call the inappropriate conversation, which is a term for reconciliation when it is experienced as a way to overlook pain or ignore problems or deny patterns of injustice. What corrective would you offer to anyone who thanks of reconciliation in this way . Yeah i would say weve got to dream bigger. The language of inappropriate conversation is like page two of the book is a very first chapter. I written to a palestinian woman, a professor in the west bank and senate like to talk to you about the Peace Process, the reconciliation between israelis and palestinians in here though thought. Im sure about this one yet line is that this is an inappropriate conversation were being occupied. Several can talk would talk about justice. As set up the tension between then did justice and reconciliation what do these things mean . With theme that emerged throughout the whole trip that i was on throughout the country, was that reconciliation becomes a real problem we think of it only in terms of eye with we could just get along. If we could just sit down and have a conversation everything would be fine. And that is the end of the imagination. And it becomes inappropriate conversation we dont see that process that process of trust of learning to re humanize each other. If we dont see that its actually a carrier towards a more free society more just society. Then it can actually part of the problem. I think what i encourage people to do is see justice and reconciliation as it intimate partnership together. Because if we deal with themes of reconciliation we might talk about Building Trust and dialogue when seeing the humanity of each other the quality of our relationship, that is never going to be sustainable if we continue to have systems and structures and processes theyre actually benefiting some of us but not all of us. Putting some of us above the others that are creating balances of power. Reconciliation is a process of learning to live together well with those you find difficult to well live well with. We cannot live together well with people when their massive imbalances of power and access to resources in all these things. So reconciliation does not have been its imagination the importance of dealing with those, then i actually can create more harm than good. Matt can add something to that . I would not have met patrick for the second time if he was not open to hearing the impact of his actions on me. That was really, really important. When i bring people together that a been hurt or conflict i have to make sure they can hear the impact of their behavior. Otherwise it can do more harm. Happy very, very careful make sure the ready to hear the impact. Quite often you find that very, very hard. Its really painful someones been through abuse or trauma that the person will not take any responsibility for the impact of their action. That has to be a crucial ingredient of these