As a Black womanist peacebuilder advancing reconciliation, I spend time confronting, deconstructing, and reconstructing definitions of reconciliation all the time. What is probably one of the most powerful tenets of the Christian faith has been watered down and made practically useless in the work of liberation because our dominant understanding of reconciliation is founded on faulty conclusions like ‘racism is a feeling.’ Whole movements for supposed reconciliation have been pursued on the premise that the breach in human relationships can be repaired in ways that do not require personal transformation or a commitment to transform the world. What Michael McRay offers us in I Am Not Your Enemy is the collective testimony of people across the world whose stories rebuke this cheap reconciliation and challenge us to aim for more. Reading I Am Not Your Enemy, I hear the yearning for hope grounded in truth. ‘If we ever want to march out of the hell of our divisions, we must tell the truth about ourselves,’ McRay writes. This truth-telling makes room for us to see ourselves—and to see beyond ourselves. Truth-telling and hopefulness work together in these stories, igniting power in the least likely people to stretch for a world they haven’t seen but know is possible.
Michael McRay gets poignantly to the heart of the matter. This is a book about the varied faces of grief, love, and reconciliation. It is incisive, smart, and acutely necessary for our times.
Peace is a troubling tension: reconciliation is nothing without justice; reparations call for action; and things have happened that can never be undone. In I Am Not Your Enemy, Michael McRay amplifies stories of people trying to live truthfully in the aftermath of horror. These are not neutral stories; they are stories of opinions, hopes, needs, demands, and anxieties. To read these stories is to be brought into the complication of enmity, restoration, and true living. McRay troubles himself too: he curates stories from international zones of suffering, and then makes himself suffer as he thinks of his own zone. In this, this book is a muscle, an ache, a practice of asking the troubling questions at the heart of peace.”
Michael McRay finds hope where most people have given up long ago. He reminds us that there is love and humanity everywhere, even in the most unlikely places. We just have to see it. As a peacebuilder and citizen of the deeply divided country of Bosnia-Herzegovina, I know firsthand the necessity of McRay’s stories and wisdom. There are ways out of the old logic of enemies. This book, at its best, shows us how.
Michael McRay is one of the few authors I’ve met who has a sharp ability to immerse himself in areas of conflict and then bring the experience to life in writing. McCray does this not only by describing historical events in detail, but by reflecting deeply on the feelings, thoughts, and insights of the people living within intense intractable conflict.
Not many people get argued into thinking differently, but lots of people get ‘storied’ into thinking differently. Sometimes our hearts move first and our heads follow. That’s why this book is so important. Michael McRay is a caretaker of stories, and he’s a master at it. He handles some of the most delicate stories in the world with the care they deserve and offers them to us as a holy sacrament. Let these stories move you, disturb you, shape you, challenge you, and invite you to change the world so that the generations to come read history as a love story.
This timely book is driven by goodwill and belief in human dignity. Michael McRay brilliantly weaves together stories of people involved in different conflicts. With a great inquiring spirit, he wrestles with difficult questions that are significant to all those working for justice. Read this book and be moved to tears, yet also inspired by hope.
Michael McRay understands the power of story to transform how we envision and relate to the world. With grace and humility, his book seeks a new narrative to stitch together a world that seems increasingly divided even as it becomes smaller, more interrelated, and more accessible than ever.
Everywhere we turn these days we are urged to see enemies and make enemies, and in so doing we can become trapped in rage, terror, or despair. Michael McRay walks directly into areas where fierce enmities have been nurtured for decades or even centuries and shares stories of healing, reconciliation, and hope. His work can help you see your enemies in a humane new light and learn how to resist the push to create enemies in the first place. These stories of rehumanization, justice, and reconciliation are perfect for our times.
These are stories that have traveled continents, written in the tears of others, inviting us to listen. These are stories that, when heard, return us to listening in the places we now call home to the pain we must articulate and answer if we too are to take part in the great work of healing-justice.
In our era of fake news, hate speech, xenophobia, and racism, Michael McRay offers a compelling way back to dignity and self-respect—by choosing to listen carefully to the stories of so-called enemies instead of showering them with fear and prejudice. Through the process of storytelling, properly conducted, McRay shows it is likely that our enemies may be transformed into partners for a better world. This is a book that should be taken very seriously indeed.
Early in this warm, inviting, and even important book, Michael McRay says he did not write to make a living off other people’s stories. This makes the book already a rare thing—the author respects and shares in the suffering of those about which the stories are told. But for the reader, he weaves a framework that provides a space in which we might find more life for ourselves. McRay is a truthful, caring, and inspirational guide to rethinking the stories that imprison us and reimagining ones that could set us free.
Michael McRay has written a stunning book of compelling stories from divided societies, as he endows each with a powerful message of hope. McRay finds meaning within chaos. This book can help all of us get our bearings if we are feeling lost or overwhelmed by the work we need to do in the world. His powerful writing allows us the privilege of feeling compassion instead of fear, inspiration in the midst of despair, and harmony in the midst of division. Thank you, Michael, for writing this book for all the seekers of justice who can use your stories like a map of love.
A good story opens windows. I Am Not Your Enemy opens quite a few. This book invites us to peer into the challenges of social healing and reconciliation in tough places and tough times. Michael McRay does not tread lightly with the stories of deep division, violence, and loss he shares, precisely because the wisdom of these stories asks us to dig beyond quick answers and rote formulas. This is the gift of a brilliant book and a story well told. It invokes a longer, deeper look. Perhaps the most important window opened in these stories emerges with the courage to see ourselves in the story. To read this book is to arrive quickly at the realization that these stories are about us, about the places we live, and the neighbors we have. They are about how we will choose to show up in the midst of fear and division, espousing the fundamental belief that we are called to love our enemies. A more timely set of stories can hardly be imagined.
Peace is a troubling tension: reconciliation is nothing without justice; reparations call for action; and things have happened that can never be undone. In I Am Not Your Enemy, Michael McRay amplifies stories of people trying to live truthfully in the aftermath of horror. These are not neutral stories; they are stories of opinions, hopes, needs, demands, and anxieties. To read these stories is to be brought into the complication of enmity, restoration, and true living. McRay troubles himself too: he curates stories from international zones of suffering, and then makes himself suffer as he thinks of his own zone. In this, this book is a muscle, an ache, a practice of asking the troubling questions at the heart of peace.”
02/21/2020
Stories can have the power to influence other people, both positively and negatively. McRay (Where the River Bends; Letters from Apartheid Street) notes that certain narratives people hold can dehumanize those who share identities, cultures, and beliefs different from their own. These tales, in part, can foster a view that others are the enemy, with violence or war sometimes the end result. The author seeks to counter this perspective by providing positive and encouraging accounts. He begins by interviewing ten people caught up in conflict and violence in countries such as South Africa, Northern Ireland, Israel, and Palestine. These same people are now involved in efforts toward social justice and reconciliation in places still experiencing political and societal unrest. McRay focuses on the transformation that's taken place in their lives, providing the hope that these positive and healing efforts can be expanded and make a significant impact, in the United States and abroad. VERDICT Those interested in political science, as well as restorative justice and peacemaking, should find this informative and engaging reading.—John Jaeger, Johnson Univ., Knoxville, TN
