On Tuesday, I went to the event
Social Justice in Harry Potter and the Arab Springs. At first, I thought it would have been
something silly, mainly geared to win the support of the Harry Potter fans here
on campus. However, the presentation
turned out to be very interesting, especially in the light of what we have
learned throughout this course. The girl
who came up with the idea found that many parallels could be drawn between the
J.K. Rowling book and the Arab Springs, specifically on social issues and civil
societies. For example, she compared the
state of servitude in which the house elves in the book live and that of women
in Saudi Arabia. She also talked a
little about the role of social media in the book (Potterwatch, the gold coins
to indicate meeting dates) somewhat paralleled those in the Arab Spring
(Facebook and Twitter). Needless to
say, I felt very knowledgeable on the subject since that is what we have been
talking about all semester. In fact, I
have realized that the issues of civil societies and social movements can be
applied to almost all cases of social injustice (or justice) that are happening
all around us. Almost always, when a
specific group is deprived of some basic rights, some form of civil society
organization will be formed, be it something like the one in Serbia, or even
Dumbledore’s Army. It is only through
them that we can promote peaceful change, and it is thanks to them that we are
able to voice our discontent of authoritative regimes or simply Voldemort.
That event sounds really interesting, especially because they linked a situation that for most Americans is foreign and almost unreal to something almost everyone is our generation has a strong, personal connection with. It almost humanizes the events in the MENA region, which I think is important in order to stop all the stereotypes many Americans hold as truths. Over the course of this semester, I also feel like I've gained so much knowledge about the region. In other classes, we are studying revolutions and it's so easy to connect them to social media and social movements. It's something my eyes have really been opened to through this course. Looking back on high school, I knew about these issues, but they seemed so isolated to that region. I couldn't relate and it was easy to think that revolutions and violence taking place there was unique in its nature. Now that I've learned more, it doesn't make sense to me now that I never considered the organization and meaning behind these events.
ReplyDeleteI like that someone took the time to draw parallels between the Arab Spring and Harry Potter, but I think that wasn't too hard to do. In my opinion, one can draw parallels between Harry Potter and many issues in today's society. For example, Voldemort's followers preached a hateful idea (only pure-blood witches and wizards should be able to use magic) and used terror tactics (killings of innocent people) to get their message across. This can be paralleled with any modern terrorist organization we know today.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, learning is great! I, too, come away from this class with a better knowledge of the events happening in the MENA region and how to squash Orientalist conclusions.