Newsweek
How Crazy Are Harry Potter Fans?
By Isia Jasiewicz Newsweek Web Exclusive
Tuesday Jul 14, 2009
Do you really need us to answer that question? The story of one Potterphile's quest to change the world through charity.
Remember how the kids at Hogwarts assembled Dumbledore's Army to fight against the Dark Arts? Well, that's kind of happening in real life, too. Except this Dumbledore's Army is a registered nonprofit, a team of Harry Potter fans/missionaries that wants to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, and genocide. Seriously? "We are living in dark and difficult times, as Dumbledore says, and we have a choice between what is right and what is easy," says Andrew Slack, the founder of the real-life Dumbledore's Army, also known as the Harry Potter Alliance, which started in 2005 and counts more than 100,000 members across the globe. These Harry Potter-ites live by the motto "the weapon we have is love" (a.k.a., "Love is the most powerful form of magic," Slack says) and wear T shirts with the slogan WHAT WOULD DUMBLEDORE DO? Through blogs and YouTube videos, they've raised more than $15,000 in aid for Darfur and Burma and donated 14,000 books to children in need worldwide.
The Harry Potter Alliance's philosophy seeks to extract values from the Potter books (SPOILER ALERT! Good always triumphs over evil. Sorry, Lord Voldemort) and use that as a starting-off point for philanthropy. Slack says he tries to get Potter fans to understand the need for activism by making analogies between the book's plots and current events: wizard newspapers ignore the return of Lord Voldemort, while our media does not give due attention to the genocide in Darfur. Harry's teacher, Remus Lupin, faces social persecution because he is a werewolf, while people in our world are discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation. The Dumbledore doctrine even supports gay marriage, and not just because Dumbledore was gay. "Equal marriage is both moral and essential," says the manifesto, which is posted on the site TheHPAlliance.org.
Thompson added that part of the appeal of the Harry Potter Alliance might lie in its similarity to role-playing games. "If we really want to be Harry Potter, we can't all go out and find a basilisk to slay," he explained. "But if you're thinking of ways you can be a Harry Potter-esque hero in the real world, one of the things that suggests itself is philanthropy. We can defeat metaphoric Voldemorts (dark forces) that way."
How Crazy Are Harry Potter Fans?
By Isia Jasiewicz Newsweek Web Exclusive
Tuesday Jul 14, 2009
Do you really need us to answer that question? The story of one Potterphile's quest to change the world through charity.
Remember how the kids at Hogwarts assembled Dumbledore's Army to fight against the Dark Arts? Well, that's kind of happening in real life, too. Except this Dumbledore's Army is a registered nonprofit, a team of Harry Potter fans/missionaries that wants to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, and genocide. Seriously? "We are living in dark and difficult times, as Dumbledore says, and we have a choice between what is right and what is easy," says Andrew Slack, the founder of the real-life Dumbledore's Army, also known as the Harry Potter Alliance, which started in 2005 and counts more than 100,000 members across the globe. These Harry Potter-ites live by the motto "the weapon we have is love" (a.k.a., "Love is the most powerful form of magic," Slack says) and wear T shirts with the slogan WHAT WOULD DUMBLEDORE DO? Through blogs and YouTube videos, they've raised more than $15,000 in aid for Darfur and Burma and donated 14,000 books to children in need worldwide.
The Harry Potter Alliance's philosophy seeks to extract values from the Potter books (SPOILER ALERT! Good always triumphs over evil. Sorry, Lord Voldemort) and use that as a starting-off point for philanthropy. Slack says he tries to get Potter fans to understand the need for activism by making analogies between the book's plots and current events: wizard newspapers ignore the return of Lord Voldemort, while our media does not give due attention to the genocide in Darfur. Harry's teacher, Remus Lupin, faces social persecution because he is a werewolf, while people in our world are discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation. The Dumbledore doctrine even supports gay marriage, and not just because Dumbledore was gay. "Equal marriage is both moral and essential," says the manifesto, which is posted on the site TheHPAlliance.org.
Thompson added that part of the appeal of the Harry Potter Alliance might lie in its similarity to role-playing games. "If we really want to be Harry Potter, we can't all go out and find a basilisk to slay," he explained. "But if you're thinking of ways you can be a Harry Potter-esque hero in the real world, one of the things that suggests itself is philanthropy. We can defeat metaphoric Voldemorts (dark forces) that way."
No comments:
Post a Comment