The Harry Potter Alliance

By Andrew Slack

April 1, 2010

The Vernon Dursley Alliance

Dear Friend,

While it has been heartening to watch the Harry Potter Alliance grow over the years to a team of 40 volunteer staff, 60 chapters, a dedicated Board of Directors and Advisers, tremendous success in our activism that has protected thousands of people in Haiti, Darfur, and Burma, has achieved incredible media coverage, a growing list of partner NGOs that we have benefited through our advocacy, and a network that now reaches over one million people – the truth is that it’s time to change everything.

The idea of Harry Potter fans using the message of Harry Potter is not normal. The idea of trying to genuinely believe that we can change unjust norms, the idea that we do not believe that “normal” is the highest aspiration that a person can achieve, is not normal. All my life I haven’t been considered normal and have often worked to change how we view and value “the normal,” and I’m tired of this approach. After months of careful introspection, I have decided that enough was enough. I am NOT resigning from my post as Executive Director. Instead I am making the executive decision to change the name and mission of what was once called the “Harry Potter Alliance” to the “Vernon Dursley Alliance.” SO HERE’S THE DEAL:

Our mission is to strive to be “perfectly normal, thank you very much.” We will not dwell on any thing strange and mysterious because we just won’t “hold with such nonsense.” We will no longer encourage each other to tap into the magic of our imagination because like Vernon Dursley who “didn’t approve of imagination” neither do we. It is imperative that all people arrive at work on time and yell at people over the phone. It is imperative that the neighbors think you are normal. If there is something different about you: HIDE IT. If there is something normal in our society that you think is unfair, by all means take that thought and jam it into a cupboard in your brain where it can never get out. We must not dress differently, we must not think differently, and we must constantly complain about the young people these days.

It is time for this organization to have a new order, and in the words of a great leader who reflected the ideals of Vernon Dursley, “I will have order!” And we will, make no mistake about it, have order.

It is far worse to appear to be out of the norm than to question it and work to change it. It is far better to sit in front of a tv like a soulless zombie than it is to question why the tv is not encouraging you to engage in creative ways to get out there and celebrate the world around you, to get out there and protect the Earth and the people on it.

Perhaps then, fund raising will become easier for we all know that it’s easier to fund raise when what you are doing is considered normal! One principal in a town in the US shut down a Harry Potter chapter and a Gay Straight Alliance and said that if students wish to make a difference they can join the Key Club. Indeed.

The only question that can be asked from here on out is, “how do I not question any thing?”

It is time to encourage the Muggle Mindset. It is time to ally together, ignore the environment, ignore human suffering, ignore inequality, and fight for the days when things were normal.

The Weapon We Have Is Fear of the Abnormal,

Andrew Slack
Executive Director of the Vernon Dursley Alliance