Why SPEW will never work

[nuriaobradors]

No: HPFGUIDX 90217

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "tiger_queen429" 
<tiger_queen429 at y...> wrote:

> At first it really struck me that I would dislike an anti-slavery 
> movement. Now I realize what I disliked about SPEW: the house elfs 
> did not want to be free themselves. I think that for any movement 
> giving powers to the underpriviladged needs the cooperation of the 
> underprivilaged group. The history of slavery through out human 
> history contains many tales of run away slaves and slave revolts. 
In 
> Latin America, for example, African slaves formed independant 
> communiities in opposition to slavery. In the United States, many 
> slave revolts occured, 

Exactly. Posing another example, (inspired in another post) is like 
if non-jews would form a movement to save "innocent poor jewish 
babies from the foul mutilation of circumsition"  - But I don't think 
observant jews, or the majority of them (and correct this clumsy 
catholic girl if I'm wrong), would want that, even if they were 
circumcised when they were merely 8 days old. (needless to say I'm 
neither condoning nor condemning circumsition).

> I'm not condoning slavery in any way, but I think that it will 
never 
> happen as long as the house-elf themselves are not demanding their 
> own freedom. Hermione would be better off helping goblins or 
> werewolves gain more rights because at least they show some desire 
to 
> gain more freedoms.

Personally, it annoys me a little this house-elf/slavery connection. 
I don't see them as slaves, but as domestic helpers. We don't need to 
go to the WW to see domestic service employees treated nearly as 
slaves,  or cinderellas if you want. The house-elf allegory is 
conveniently exaggerated to fit the story, but I don't think people 
like the Malfoys would treat a human maid or butler any better than 
they treated Dobby - the differences between people and house-elves 
at choosing to stay with that people and their level of endurance to 
mistrteatment being obvious. I live in a middle-class neighbourhood 
and I've seen kids from not-so-wealthy families plainly insulting the 
household personnel or making derisive comments about them. 

Cheers, 

Nuri