J.K. Rowling Just Wrote A Highly Personal Brexit Essay

The Brexit is a wildly controversial ballot measure that will allow the British population to vote on European Union membership for the first time in over 40 years. British politicians have been speaking for and against it more or less constantly, only breaking for three days after a young woman lawmaker was brutally killed while meeting with constituents. Now, J.K. Rowling has entered the fray with an essay about the Brexit and monsters. She writes about fear, propaganda, and how the Leave movement (that’s the side that wants Britain to exit the EU) plays on nationalist fears and passions to sway people to their side. She makes a compelling and fair argument, calling out Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as two of the only three major world political figures to call for Britain to leave the EU. The best part of the essay is when she gets personal about her heritage. “I'm the mongrel product of this European continent and I'm an internationalist,” Rowling writes. “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 multiple 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.” Read the rest of the essay here.