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These class 7 children want Harry Potter to save the country
Karachi, Nov 07, 2007: A group of class seven students at a private school in Karachi, for whom the state
of emergency is a completely alien and unprecedented concept, are comparing the
current state of affairs to the adventures of Harry Potter and wondering if
President Musharraf is impressed by Lord Voldemort, the villain in JK Rowling's
immensely popular Harry Potter series.
"My students might be young but it
is heartening to see how well informed they are," said Sehar Rizvi, who teaches
the seventh graders at a local private school. She felt the students did a
pretty good job on the analogies of characters that they had been assigned.
"What distresses them the most is the absence of [a character
corresponding to] Dumbledore and they can't quite mark anyone as accomplished as
the greatest wizard of all," said Sophiya, the teacher who had come up with the
idea of the class discussion and assignment. She said she planned to now put it
up on the main school board to make students understand the importance of what
the emergency operation is.
When we asked the students for
ideas, a lot of them came up with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah for the
simple reason that he and Dumbledore were both deceased.
Among other
factors, 12-year-old Saad Zia felt that Dumbledore and Jinnah were similar in
that their followers were in danger. "Quaid-e-Azam was a lawyer and his
followers, the lawyers and the Supreme Court are now in danger and Dumbledore
was the headmaster and his students and school were in danger."
Twelve-year-old Hamza Niazi felt Voldemort and Musharraf were similar
because they were both supporters of "militancy". "Voldemort wanted to finish
off defense against the dark arts and teach in the school of wizardry. In our
situation, Musharraf wants to finish off the judiciary which would defend the
weak, and turn the country into a dictatorship," the 12-year-old
opined.
The children compared General Musharraf and the military's take
over as the one conducted by Voldemort and his death eaters, while Chief Justice
of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was likened to Harry Potter and the
lawyers are Harry's friends.
The students felt PTV was similar to 'Daily
Prophet', the wizardry newspaper, while the other news channels that have been
banned were compared to 'The Quibbler', which was the newspaper that went
against Voldemort and was then shut down after the villain and his allies
kidnapped the editor's daughter.
They compared the code of conduct for
the media (no negative comments about the president or government) to the 'taboo
law' imposed in the last Harry Potter book. The army and other law enforcing
agencies were said to be the 'snatchers' (Voldemort's workers) who used to catch
witches and wizards who dared to utter the dark lord's name.
They also
compared Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to Thackneize, who was the prime minister
of the wizards appointed by Voldemort and had been put under the imperious
curse.
The children's most insightful observations were those regarding
Benazir Bhutto. They felt she was similar to Umbridge, an evil ministry witch
who had given Harry a hard time in his fifth year at the Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, others felt that Bhutto could be Voldemort's
faithful servant Bellatrix Lestrange as well.
The students did not
forget those whose loved ones were arrested or killed. Their sorrow was likened
to the presence of dementors, creatures that took away all hope and happiness
but were invisible to 'muggle' (non-wizards) eyes.
The most creative
comparison was that of the 'Order of Phoenix', a secret society working hard to
bring down the death eaters and Voldemort independent of the ministry's
governance. The students felt the media was playing that role by ensuring that
the whole world was aware of the dark times that were being faced by Pakistanis.
For 11-year-old Meena, the situation was similar to that in the books
when Voldemort takes over the ministry of magic and starts hunting down Harry
Potter. "We just hope there is a Harry Potter out there somewhere who will save
us." Daily Times
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Education News| Updated: 09 Jan, 2009 |
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