Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

We went yesterday. The buses had changed their routes so we were forced to trek up and down in the freezing cold and driving rain to arrive at the cinema.

The cinema was graced by eight people other than ourselves, not one a giggling adolescent phoning her boyfriend or chatting behind her hand to her friend. We had the latter pleasure during the last Harry Potter film.

I enjoyed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, and had a short snicker at the line: "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide".

"Introducing 'educational reform' and a programme of 'evaluation' -- the motto being "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" -- he {Voldemort) uses murder and oppression to set about creating the perfect pure blood society."

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/113/1133326p1.html

I think Joanne Rowling has captured the social engineering/education/ media entrainment to the Labour message perfectly with her Potter series, whether or not she affects to support the Labour government with her gifts of money. I recall sitting watching the situation at Hogwarts, under the tender unmercies of kitten-loving, bow-wearing gargoyle Dolores Umbridge in her triumphant and terrible march through the school and seeing almost the same situation that we, home educators, were facing in the UK.

I was uncomfortable, even as I chuckled because it was too close. Really too close for comfort.

"The Muggle-Born Registration Commission was set up by the Ministry of Magic following Lord Voldemort's takeover on 1 August 1997. The public goal of the Commission was to force all Muggle-born wizards and witches to register with the Ministry, then undergo interrogation as to how they "stole" their magical power from "real" wizards and witches. The true purpose of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission was to imprison and degrade Muggle-borns. Dolores Umbridge was the head of the commission. "

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Muggle-Born_Registration_Commission

The scene where Filch was standing on a long ladder hanging up the new edicts banning this, that or the other will stay with me forever. The apparently pleasant but deeply vile character, Umbridge, reminded me of certain people who wished to deprive others - home educators, for example - of liberties they were accustomed to. She was convinced of her own rightness, and never swerved from what she saw as her duty to repress and punish.

I am a Harry Potter fan. I see that the series is rich with allusions to the recent plight of home educators. I know that much of the Harry Potter series is clever, entertaining and funny; however, it will always make me shiver just a little.

Nothing to fear, nothing to hide

As you know, if you have followed my blog posts, an ex-friend tried to tell me that 'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.'

It's what is called a false dichotomy. Either you have something to hide and therefore you fear discovery or it's OK because you aren't doing anything that anyone could possibly disapprove of and you don't care who knows what.

Of course, there's another possibility and that is that you just want your doings, whatever they are, to be private.

I'm quite a private person. I don't like to have people watch me eat, laugh or frown. Sorry, that's just the way I am. Private, shy and quiet. At least, that's the old me. The old me is being constantly upgraded and superceded.

(That is the real me, not the assumed me for public consumption who will leap upon people who threaten my children's freedom and 'engage' them if necessary. The people, not my children. My youngsters are usually engaged, thanks).

So nothing to fear, nothing to hide (deliberate reversal). We have lots to fear. The ceaseless trampling of freedom in the name of other stuff like safeguarding. The unholy rush to protect civil servants' jobs by 'making work' by vilifying parents and telling parents that they suck and they must do better. They can attend courses which makes everything all right then. The make-work principle reaches up into all areas in politics, I believe, because I don't think politicians really know what they are supposed to do.

Just a thought: Do we even need them? Politicians. Would we miss them if they weren't there?

Wouldn't it be nice to try a year without Whitehall? No cuts, no policy writers, no Hansard.

Would we want it all back?

If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear.

Yeah, right.