"I’m not an expert on ?? ??? ??? ???much, but I do know how to create a monster"
This is the first line of JK Rowling's heartfelt appeal for Britain to remain in the European Union ahead of the 23 June referendum.
And she doesn't pull punches on both sides of the campaign for creating "monsters".
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In a blog post on her website entitled "On Monsters, Villains and the EU Referendum", the Harry Potter author weighs in on "one of the most divisive and bitter political campaigns ever waged" within UK borders.
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"I've thought a lot about the rules for creating villains," she wrote. "We are being asked whether we wish to remain part of the European Union and both sides of this campaign have been telling us stories.
"I don't mean that in the sense of lying (although lies have certainly been told)."
"I mean that they are appealing to us through our universal need to make sense of the world by storytelling and that they have not been afraid to conjure monsters calculated to stir up our deepest fears."
Rowling goes on listing the "tales" told by both Remain and Leave sides, which have been "uglier than any I can remember in my lifetime".
"For some on the Leave side, the EU is not merely imperfect, or in need of improvement: it is villainous," she says. "The union that was born out of a collective desire never to see another war in Europe is depicted as an Orwellian monolith, Big Brotheresque in its desire for control."
Immigration is another topic which has drawn "some of the nastiest arguments" of the campaign, Rowling says, with Leave busy conjuring up another monster: "a tsunami of faceless foreigners, heading for our shores, among them rapists and terrorists.
Although she admits that it's "dishonourable" to suggest that Leavers are all racists, the writer says that it's "equally nonsensical to pretend that racists and bigots aren't flocking to the 'Leave' cause, or that they aren't, in some instances, directing it".
After warning on the dangers of nationalism in Europe, with scary parallels on the rise of Donald Grump in the United States, Rowling gives a passionate defence of internationalism and the European ideals of a borderless continent:
I'm the mongrel product of this European continent and I'm an internationalist. I was raised by a Francophile mother whose family was proud of their part-French heritage. My French ancestors lived in the troubled province of Alsace, which spent hundreds of years being alternately annexed by Germany and France. I've lived in France and Portugal and I've studied French and German. I love having these mulitple allegiances and cultural associations. They make me stronger, not weaker. I glory in association with the cultures of my fellow Europeans. My values are not contained or proscribed by borders. The absence of a visa when I cross the channel has symbolic value to me. I might not be in my house, but I'm still in my hometown.
The EU's not perfect, Rowling writes, but so aren't all human unions: "From friendships, marriages, families and workplaces, all the way up to political parties, governments and cultural economic unions, there will be flaws and disagreements. Because we're human. Because we're imperfect."
Why bother then?
Here's the impassioned response:
Because they protect and empower us, because they enable bigger and better achievements than we can manage alone. We should be proud of our enduring desire to join together, seeking better, safer, fairer lives, for ourselves and for millions of others.
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