Harry Potter and the eight stages of Genocide.

Upon re- reading the final Harry Potter novel, and with all this social psych stuff running around in my head i started thinking about how the Harry Potter novels (which are written for children) are based around genocide. So i decided to write a blog about how the eight stages of genocide relate to harry potter, and if nothing else but a bit of fun, this can maybe help us all gain a greater understanding of genocide and how it occurs.

STAGE ONE - CLASSIFICATION
The distinction between us and them. This happens early on in the novels, the 'muggles' (non-magical folk) are separated from the wizards, its an 'us and them' situation. This can further be broken down in to the 'pure bloods' (those who descend from a long lived wizarding family) 'half bloods, (those who had one parent who was a wizard and one a muggle) and 'mud blood' (horrible word for those whose parents are both muggles) In the novels, A group of extremist 'pure blood' wizards become a 'them' and the rest of the wizarding community become an 'us'. The extremist 'us' form a group called 'The order of the Phoenix', and plan to fight the Death eaters.


STAGE TWO - SYMBOLISATION
Giving names and symbols to the classifications. In this case the 'bad' group are called the 'Death Eaters' and are distinguished by a tattoo found on the inside of their arm. The names part was classified in the first stage.

STAGE THREE - DEHUMANIZATION
One group denies the humanity of another group. In this case it was the death eaters dening that all wizards that are not of pure blood decent were worthless.

STAGE FOUR - ORGANISATION
The death eaters were lead by a evil wizard called Voldermort (or He Who Must Not Be Named). They started as a small group and recruited more and more people and magical creatures, eventually they over throw the ministry of magic, taking control of the government and the country.

STAGE FIVE -POLARIZATION
Extremists drive the groups apart. The death eaters take over the country, forcing the members of The order of the Phoenix and other wizards of human decent into hiding, if they are found they will be tortured and killed.

STAGE SIX - PREPARATION
The death eaters start to attack and identify all members of the community who are not of 'pure blood', or who are 'blood traitors' (those who chose to help the general wizarding community, but are of pure blood) Lists are made of who should live, and if your name isn't on the list, you are to be killed on sight, or taken in as a hostage.

STAGE SEVEN - EXTERMINATION
Mass murders start to take place. Many wizards are murdered. (including some main characters!) A safe haven is set up in Hogworts (the wizard school) Eventually The Order of the Phoenix recruits enough members to take on the Death eaters and there is an epic battle (between good and evil)

STAGE EIGHT - DENIAL
This is an interesting stage in the book, the Minister for Magic denies that Voldermort is back (in short he kind of died but managed to come back to life) because of the fear and horrible things he did to people when he was in power last time, the minister thought it better to deny the obvious and tell the wizarding community that Voldermort was still 'dead'. This idea is presented to the wizarding community for about 2 books or so, (2 years) until its too late to stop the wizard genocide from happening.

I find that the denial that is shown in the book, as the minister can not deal with the horrible things that go along with admitting Voldermort is back, very similar to the US and UN not admitting what was happening in Rwanda as 'genocide'. It appears that by labelling and naming the horrible thing makes it more real, and if its real then the Governments have something incredibly horrible and serious to deal with. It seems that it is just easier to deny it, even when the evidence points to the complete opposite.

hmmmm anyway just something that was running through my head. Feel free to add comments!