Every summer I take the time to reread the Harry Potter series. It is a bit of an obsession and those books are rather fantastic beach reading material. This week when we were debating over Sarmiento and José Martí I had a kind of epiphany on how many of the issues we have seen strike developing Latin America are also at the core of Wizard society.
One of the first ones that popped into my head is the similarity between Martí's call for a raceless nation and the controversy between pure-blood and wizards. In the series, Voldemort's main desire is ridding the world of muggles and those who are not pure of blood. He believes that pure-bloods are superior and therefore they are the only ones who deserve to use magic. He even goes on to say that those who cannot trace their lineage back to a line of pure blood wizards must have stolen the magic, especially those wizards whose parents are muggles. I find this to be similar to the frame of mind of the white elites in 19th century Latin America. They believed themselves superior to the indigenous due to their lineage and European backgrounds and therefore manipulated the lower classes. Martí and Dumbledore have very similar mindsets. They are both under the impression that the best society is one created without boundaries based upon race or wizard blood lines.
A second tie I found was the use of propaganda in the Harry Potter series. Newspaper readings are huge in the wizarding world. The main newspaper, "The Daily Prophet" is read widely by the population and is one of the only sources of information for most of them. In class Professor Stark brought up the point that in the past and even now, we know very little of what is going on in the world. We know the simple statistics that the news and papers give us and that is all. In the Spanish/American/Cuban war propaganda was a very large component. The same is seen in the battle between Voldemort and his death eaters and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. One example from the series that stands out to me is when Mrs. Weasley turned on Hermione because she believed that Hermione was dating and cheating on Harry. There was no truth at all to this statement and the newspaper was targeting Harry because he had somehow made it into the Triwizard Tournament. It shows how easily people can be manipulated. In the final books "The Daily Prophet" becomes controlled by the Wizard Ministry. I find this to be very similar to the government censoring seen in the United States when the president was accused of cowardice.
Those are the main two I found but if you guys think of any more let me know! I attached a mashup for the trailers of all eight movies in case anyone was lost on who was who or anything. Or if you just feel the need to take a break. Good luck finishing up your papers!
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