"The Ministry of Magic has fallen. He is coming. HE is coming"

5/01/2011 11:17:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 9 Comments

 As England celebrated the fairytale wedding of a beautiful princess and a handsome prince watched by a willing world bouyed up on good humour, pageantry, pomp and circumstance another, less visible England continued as normal. Parent's awoke filled with pride for children the world will never see as they do, princes and princesses of courage, determination and innovation achieving day to day miraculous successes not marked by champagne or celebration, but by preparation for the next battle to be fought, the next prize to be won on the long and winding road that is disability.

Today is the 5th annual Blogging Against Disablism Day and in the last year many things have changed. The Dark Lord has taken over the Ministry for Magic, installed his own Minister and embarked on an ideological war. Daily propaganda is printed and fed to a willing media about the scandal of Mudbloods; a population fearful for the futures of their own children buy into scaremongering stories about the cost to the public of supporting Mudbloods and bury their heads in the sand, denying the prospect that one day, as we all do, they too will become Mudbloods and fear the brown envelope delivered by postman not owl to inform them they are no longer considered financially sustainable.

When that day comes, despite all the warnings, all the challenges raised by those already labelled Mudbloods, it always comes as a surprise. As if being a magical person somehow protects from the dark forces of life, accident, illness, injury, despair. By the time that lesson is learnt the Mudblood file is already filled out at the Ministry, a 'useless eater' label applied and families make ever desperate attempts to protect their much loved Mudbloods from a pre-destined fate they believed themselves magical enough to escape. 

There is no escape.

"The Ministry of Magic has fallen. He is coming. HE is coming"

And unlike Hermoine, the Mudbloods of today's England have no Harry and Ron equipped with courage, compassion, loyalty and sense of innate justice to wave their wands and wage war as we are held down and labelled with Mudblood tattoos on our inner arms.  We have no Dumbledore to advise us, to leave us clues of how to challenge such dark forces and win. We don't even have a Dobby, fiercely protective to the very end, willing to sacrifice everything in the battle for right and wrong.

Instead we take up our wands, in the form of computers and keyboards to weave our wondrous words and hope that you, the as yet still magical people heed our warnings, our understanding that once just one person is labelled a Mudblood there is no end point but the destruction of all Mudbloods, labelled Mudbloods for reasons entirely beyond their control by a small group of wealthy, powerful dark witches and wizards bent on shaping the country in their image, seemingly ignorant of the fact that one day, someone they love will receive the letter informing them they are now a Mudblood too and no longer financially sustainable.

9 comments:

Erika said...

As an avid Harry Potter fan I love this, explains so well what is happening. What is the mark of the death-eaters these days the mark of the DWP?

Anonymous said...

YES - I love this as also love HP - Camermort (Voldecam?) he is the evil one - I hate him

Becca_Boot said...

I love this, the seemless blending of HP and real life is both wonderful and terrifying.
I'm not able to take part in BADD by writing a blog this year but I'm planning on posting a list of the blogs on my tumblr and I was wondering if I could include yours.
Please let me know if this is okay.
Becca

Becca, course you can!

Erika & Anon. I couldn't possibly comment on who each character might be, I'll leave that to your imaginations ;)

Yes! the context of the wedding is especially meaningful. It seems simplistic to say that the wealth distribution is wrong, that the distribution and use of public funds is wrong, but there it is. The insitutional relationships of government and royalty are a powerful context in which to think about disability....

nice one.

WCD

Oh, just loved, loved, LOVED the imagery in this post. Bravo!

Anonymous said...

As an HP fanatic, I came for the title. . . I stayed for the post!

Anonymous said...

Wonderfully written as usual. Send to Joe Public, or even CIF!