May 9, 2009

by Bill Levinson

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series might well have been influenced by her country’s experience in the years before the Second World War, and some of the characters seem to have historical or contemporary counterparts. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (Neville Chamberlain) does not wish to believe that Lord Voldemort (Hitler) has returned, and he uses the media to smear anybody who says otherwise. Fudge instead accuses Professor Dumbledore (Winston Churchill?) of assembling a private army with which to take over the Ministry of Magic as opposed to defending it against the Death Eaters: obvious counterparts of Nazis. The Death Eaters’ preoccupation with genetics and their description of wizards with non-magical parents as “mudbloods” who should be exterminated is an obvious reflection of Nazi racial ideology.

Dolores Umbridge is a particularly loathsome character in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and she uses extrajudicial methods to punish anybody who dares suggest that Lord Voldemort has returned. She forces Harry Potter to write “I must not tell lies” with a pen that cuts the words into his flesh, and then she turns Hogwarts into a police state with her own private Gestapo. Dolores Umbridge has numerous real-world counterparts like Kathy Owens (Bucknell University), Barbara Grossman of Tufts University, and now British Home Secretary Jackie Smith.

Banned list won’t protect us from extremists – it’s just a smokescreen distracting us from Labour’s slow death reports,

Drumroll please…Ta-da! Published today, courtesy of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, is a list of 16 fanatics barred from entering the UK for fostering extremism or hatred.

Islamic extremists…White supremacists…a US radio host [Michael Savage]…Just roll up and take a look. Entering Britain is a privilege, says Miss Smith – no room for any undesirables here!

Just as Dolores Umbridge seemed to be in league with the real undesirables (Death Eaters/ Nazis), Jacqui Smith seems to be using her authority to help militant “Islamic” supremacists whose openly stated agenda is to take over the United Kingdom and institute barbaric Sharia law. As with Kathy Owens of Bucknell University and Barbara Grossman of Tufts University, Jackie Smith is apparently using her position of authority to intimidate and/or silence anybody like Michael Savage or, in the case of Grossman and Owens, conservative student publications, who dare to proclaim that militant “Islam” is a clear and present danger to civilized Humanity. This is exactly what the fictional Dolores Umbridge did to Harry Potter when he said that Hogwarts’ students needed to learn to defend themselves against Voldemort, and the following picture illustrates the general idea.

Needless to say, Dolores Umbridge had her real-life counterparts during the 1930s. They ranged from isolationists such as America First and Father Charles Coughlin to actual Nazi sympathizers like the German-American Bund. We must really wonder what Jacqui Smith would have said and done when Adolf Hitler’s agenda, like that of the militant “Muslims” with whom Ms. Smith seems to be trying to protect from criticism, was to slaughter millions of innocent people and destroy what most people recognize as Civilization.