Lord Voldemort, or Tom Marvolo Riddle, is the legendary villain of the Harry Potter book series. Voldemort is a psychopath, murderer, cruel, perverse, and racist who believes that only "pure-blood" wizards should prevail (eugenics), a clear allusion to the Aryan race of Hitler's Nazi-fascist regime.
He argues that those born to wizarding parents are superior to those born to one or both "Muggle" (non-magical human) parents. "Purebloods" are those with entirely wizarding blood. An important detail is that Tom Riddle himself is the son of a Muggle father, just as Hitler was not German and did not fit the supposed Aryan stereotype.
Hate crimes are those motivated by prejudice, intentionally perpetrated against a victim who belongs to a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, racial, gender, sexual orientation, or physical characteristic, among others. We'll use the story of Harry Potter to explain these concepts within the Brazilian legal system.
During the First and Second Wizarding Wars, Voldemort committed genocide against groups he considered inferior and unworthy. Law No. 2,889/1956 defines and punishes the crime of genocide in Brazil, defining it as the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:
a) kill members of the group;
b) cause serious harm to the physical or mental integrity of group members;
c) intentionally subject the group to conditions of existence capable of causing its total or partial physical destruction;
d) adopt measures to prevent births within the group;
e) carry out the forced transfer of children from the group to another group;
The act of directly and publicly inciting someone to commit any of the aforementioned crimes constitutes the crime of genocide. The law also provides for a more severe penalty in the case of a crime committed by a government official or public official.
Racial Insult is provided for in Article 140 of the Penal Code and consists of offending someone's dignity using elements of color, ethnicity, religion, origin or condition of being elderly or disabled.
In other words, insults directed at a person based on attributes such as skin color constitute racial slur. The penalty is one to three years in prison and a fine. One of the most common terms used by pure-blood supremacists in the Harry Potter stories to racially insult a person is calling them a "mudblood."
Racism, which is provided for in art. 20 of Law No. 7,716/1989, refers to discriminatory conduct directed at a collective, a social group, based on color or ethnicity.
Racism is broader, denying someone entry to an establishment because of their skin color, refusing to sell a certain product, or denying them employment or admission to a certain school because of their skin color. The penalty ranges from one to five years in prison, and it is non-bailable and imprescriptible.
When, during the Second Wizarding War, Voldemort seizes power in the wizarding world, he takes away the wands of wizards with Muggle blood, depriving them of any chance of living in the wizarding world, taking away their dignity, jobs, health, and quality of life. Without their wands, these wizards cannot perform magic, nor can they live normally like others. This is another clear allusion to the situation in which Jews were placed by the Nazis during World War II.
To illustrate this scenario a little, we bring a dialogue between one of the members of Voldemort's sect, Dolores Umbridge, who worked in the government, interrogating a Muggle-born witch:
-Could you tell us which witch or wizard you got that wand from?”
-Did I get it? I didn't get it from anyone. I bought it when I was eleven. It chose me.
-No. No, I don't think so, Mrs. Cattermole. Wands only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch.
Hate crime is based on the aggression of an individual for their differences, which is transformed into discrimination and a binary opposition, placed under the perspective of right and wrong, good and bad, of us and others (FERREIRA NETTO, 2018).
Leticia Ferreira Netto (2018) further explains that:
Hate crime is motivated by hatred of difference, as if the problems generally posited resided therein, and the generic solution is also found in the elimination of difference and suppression, which leads to violence. Hate crime, because it does not accept plurality, is incompatible with democracy and human rights.
To conclude, I leave you with a striking quote from the late Hogwarts headmaster, Albus Dumbledore:
“Difficult times await us and soon we will have to choose between what is right and what is easy.”
I recommend the texts below for further reading:
https://repositorio.utfpr.edu.br/jspui/bitstream/1/8871/1/CT_COLET_2015_2_08.pdf
http://iblog.iup.edu/iuphogwartsslytherin/voldemort-and-nazism/
https://www.deviante.com.br/noticias/ciencia/harry-potter-e-as-referencias-historicas/
https://blog.enem.com.br/o-que-o-nazismo-tem-em-comum-com-harry-potter-e-senhor-dos-aneis/
REFERENCES:
FERREIRA NETTO, Letícia Rodrigues. Hate crime. Infoescola, [sl], 2018. Available at: https://www.infoescola.com/direito/crime-de-odio/. Accessed on: August 20, 2022.
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