Harry Potter has always stood for fairness and the betterment of humanity, so why should chocolate bearing his name be any different?
HPA — the Harry Potter Alliance — has done great work upholding the values of the boy wizard with charitable acts and social activism. In an ongoing battle with Warner Brothers, HPA has sought to make licensed Harry Potter chocolate candies fair trade.
Stars of the movies Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), Jason Issacs (Lucius Malfoy), Natalia Tena (Nymphadora Tonks), and Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley) have added their name to the over 16,000 signatures on 400 pages of petitions that were sent to Warner Brothers. In response to a previous effort to get them to go Fair Trade, the studio said it didn’t see anything wrong with its conduct, according to HPA.
As a huge fan of Harry Potter, I support HPA’s efforts and applaud them for taking a stand in Harry’s name. Here’s more, excerpted from documents by HPA.
Warner Bros. chocolate is not certified ethical; as they have yet to provide evidence of their self-proclaimed ethical practices, one can only assume that Warner Bros. follow the commonly unethical practices.
In the Potter series, chocolate is a force for good–it is the most effective cure for a Dementor attack by restoring warmth and hope in those who consume it. It is essentially a Muggle product with magical qualities, a trait that emphasizes how special and important it truly is. But chocolate made on the backs of child slaves would never have that kind of effect. It would never give hope or warmth or magic. If Harry and his friends knew that their chocolate was made under those kinds of conditions, they wouldn’t stand for it. The “Not in Harry’s Name” Campaign is based on the idea that Harry would never stand for such brutality to be inflicted upon cocoa workers in his name. Therefore, Potter fans are taking a stand against Warner Bros. by asking them to stop using non-Fair Trade chocolate in their Potter-branded candy.
Interested parties can join our campaign by signing our petition, creating their own Muggle Howler, sending cease and desist letters to WB, and spreading the word about the campaign on social networking sites to raise awareness. All of that information and more can be found on our “Not in Harry’s Name” webpage at www.thehpalliance.org/nihn.
For the past several months fans of the series have also been expressing their concern over the status of Harry Potter chocolate through Howler videos, where fans are able to put their feelings on their topic in a video directly to WB and cease and desist letters, expressing that while WB owns the intellectual property rights they don’t own the spirit of the series.An overview video of the Not in Harry’s Name campaign can be viewed on our YouTube channel and many frequently asked questions are addressed in the attached Questions and Answers document.
–Ken Choy
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