Last night I was reading Stephen Fry's new autobiography, The Fry Chronicles, as has been my constant habit for the past week. In it he recounted an anecdote that he once heard from Alistair Cooke about the time Hitler apologised to him. For the full story, read The Fry Chronicles. If you don't care about the story, read The Fry Chronicles anyway, because it is amazing. Anyway, the story was from before he was an infamous dictator (Hitler, not Cooke), when he was merely an up-and-coming politician. Cooke, who only spoke a little German, stumbled upon Hitler addressing a small, but fanatical crowd. Most people have heard of Hitler's unparalleled oratory skills. But the anecdote had me wondering how any human being could possibly achieve such wide-scale insanity. Hitler essentially convinced half of Europe that Jews were subhuman, via such blatant methods - anyway, you all know how it went, and you can all also hopefully recognise that I am majorly over-simplifying the matter.
Anyway, so this thought struck me at 10.40, so I texted Sara, who is my eternal sounding board for all my insane ideas. The conversation went like this:
Me: I think Hitler must have been a wizard.
Sara: Haha what an odd text to send me at 10:40 at night. Anyway I enthusiastically await your answer as to why?
Me: Sorry, I hope you weren't asleep. Well, I just don't see how it is humanly possible to be naturally endowed with such oratory proficiency to be able to brainwash millions of high functioning people, especially with such blatant propaganda and lies. He simply must have been a Dark Wizard. No muggle could have done it.
Me: I may write a blog about it...
Sara: Nah I wasn’t asleep, just highly amused and intrigued. Ok so I’m going to have to agree with you. I’m thinking some of them were like true inner circle Nazis (like Bellatrix equivalents) and others were under the Imperius Curse.
Sara: Oh and I’d definitely read that blog. Comparing real life events to wizards? Is it my birthday already?
Me: It's most definitely a possibility. But it begs the question, why use gas chambers and such when there are surely more efficient magical methods? I suppose Avada Kedavra is not so effective given the pluralistic nature of genocide. And besides, perhaps pretences had to be maintained. International Statutes of Secrecy and all that jazz. Still, what's a breach of the Statute compared with world domination?
Me: If only I put this much thought into ANY of my VCE subjects...
Sara: OH OH OH‼‼! WHEN VOLDY KILLED HIS DAD AND GRANDPARENTS THE MUGGLES WERE LIKE WTF HOW’D THIS HAPPEN AND SO THEY WERE LIKE OH MUST BE A GAS LEAK‼ boom. You’ve just been… Harry Potter’d? Magic’d? Jo’d? I dunno.
Sara: Although I think the secrecy is a more likely reason, due to the large large scale.
Me: I can only imagine that he thought "If I pretend to be a muggle, the Wizarding Community will leave me alone to dominate the wider muggle world, and once I’ve established control, I can take the ministry in an unforeseen (except perhaps by Trelawney) overnight coup” whereas if he attempted open warfare on the Wizarding World, Dumby and co. obviously would have stepped in.
Sara: I’m not going to lie, I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that the year ww2 ended was the same year that Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald
Me: Yes, Jo undoubtedly intended the parallel, but I had never before considered the (potential) implication that Hitler was a wizard.
Further civilities followed.
I think we are on to something though...
Here is a clip of Hitler making a speech. Obviously I have no idea what he's saying, but he looks to me like a nutter with a mustache. The crowd is going nuts for him though. Surely he has some sort of charm on him to make him look extra-appealing in a way that isn't coming across in film. Or maybe he has forsaken water in favour of Felix Felicis. Or maybe he has developed a magical weapon of mass mind-control. Or maybe he was just a damn good public speaker and Germany already had the anti-Semitic seeds sown.
Anyway, I shall continue to relate everyday situations, history and literature to Harry Potter
Sandy xx
Damn, a wasp just flew into my room.
p.s. In case you didn't pick up on the title, it's "Hitler for Minister of Magic".
p.p.s I'm not endorsing Hitler politically by this title. But at the time, I'm sure MoM was his eventual goal.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Stephen Fry: King
It is completely unoriginal to say so, and it will be news to no one (that matters, anyway) that Stephen Fry is one of the greatest people living today - perhaps ever. If you don't know who he is, you suck. Go look him up. This evening, instead of doing homework like a good year 12 student, I spent several hours catching up on his blog, much of which i have missed due to said year 12ness. In his latest blog he talks candidly about the perpetuation of gay stereotypes being a part of gay culture - that oppressing flamboyant characters because they perpetuate stereotypes is moving backwards in gay rights. I'm not gay, but what he wrote was so well put together and so true that I thought I'd share it with my (non-existent) readership.
His musings on the status of gays within society, combined with a common room conversation I had this afternoon about Aboriginal Australians has prompted me to put my thoughts on paper (at least, virtual paper).
I have long believed that drawing attention to gay, or aboriginal, or any kind of minority rights, only marginalises the group further. Of course, a basic awareness and understanding of social issues is vital to any community, but there is a big difference between knowing and understanding this issues, and doing everything you can to make a song and dance about it. My point is well illustrated in the 5th episode of season 2 of that brilliant Masterpiece, South Park. Conjoined Fetus Lady has a dinner scene where a lady with a physical abnormality, but who is perfectly comfortable with said abnormality, is berated by Kyle's mum in an effort to make her feel ok about her deformity, which, as I have said, she already is.
Now, I know that I really can have no authority of opinion when I am a straight, white, middle-class, 21st Century woman. I have never experienced any serious prejudice, racism or oppression in my (dare I say it) charmed life. But I have seen what pushing these issues too far can do.
Anyone who has recently grown up in Australia will tell you that the plight of the Indigenous Australians has been shoved down our throats from a very early age. This is good. We need to know about it. But oh my god! We need to know about it, we don't need to hear about it so often, study it in such depth, and be sent on a constant guilt trip whenever someone acknowledges the rightful owners of the land, the Wurundjeri people, so as we reach a stage where we can't stand to hear another word about it!
This is a very long winded way of saying that there is such a thing as TOO MUCH.
Similarly, being over-conscious of minority groups only sets them further apart. Focusing on their differences only ostracises them further. It's important to acknowledge them, understand and maintain their cultures, but more important to consider them one of the whole community, rather than a separate entity.
But, what do I know, right?
His musings on the status of gays within society, combined with a common room conversation I had this afternoon about Aboriginal Australians has prompted me to put my thoughts on paper (at least, virtual paper).
I have long believed that drawing attention to gay, or aboriginal, or any kind of minority rights, only marginalises the group further. Of course, a basic awareness and understanding of social issues is vital to any community, but there is a big difference between knowing and understanding this issues, and doing everything you can to make a song and dance about it. My point is well illustrated in the 5th episode of season 2 of that brilliant Masterpiece, South Park. Conjoined Fetus Lady has a dinner scene where a lady with a physical abnormality, but who is perfectly comfortable with said abnormality, is berated by Kyle's mum in an effort to make her feel ok about her deformity, which, as I have said, she already is.
Now, I know that I really can have no authority of opinion when I am a straight, white, middle-class, 21st Century woman. I have never experienced any serious prejudice, racism or oppression in my (dare I say it) charmed life. But I have seen what pushing these issues too far can do.
Anyone who has recently grown up in Australia will tell you that the plight of the Indigenous Australians has been shoved down our throats from a very early age. This is good. We need to know about it. But oh my god! We need to know about it, we don't need to hear about it so often, study it in such depth, and be sent on a constant guilt trip whenever someone acknowledges the rightful owners of the land, the Wurundjeri people, so as we reach a stage where we can't stand to hear another word about it!
This is a very long winded way of saying that there is such a thing as TOO MUCH.
Similarly, being over-conscious of minority groups only sets them further apart. Focusing on their differences only ostracises them further. It's important to acknowledge them, understand and maintain their cultures, but more important to consider them one of the whole community, rather than a separate entity.
But, what do I know, right?
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