Censoring ‘Tintin in the Congo’
Why an 80-year-old comic book is being pulled from the shelves
A bust of Tintin for sale on the streets in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Corbis/Olivier Polet)
“Tintin is in trouble!” said The Times of India. Legal trouble, at least. Congolese accountant Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, 41, is suing the fictional Belgian reporter—or his Belgian publisher, anyways—in French court, asking that the 1929 comic book “Tintin in the Congo” be banned as colonial propaganda that spreads “racism and xenophobia.” Mondondo filed the same suit in Belgium two years ago, but nothing came of it.
Small wonder, said Henry Samuel in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Belgium’s inaction on the suit may not be “politically motivated,” as Mondondo claims, but Tintin is “a rare unifying symbol” in divided Belgium, which ruled Congo from 1885 to 1960, sometimes brutally. “Postcolonial guilt,” however, doesn’t explain the Brooklyn Public Library’s decision to pull “Tintin au Congo” from its shelves.
The Brooklyn Public Library is facing “public outcry of censorship” for putting “Tintin au Congo” under lock and key, said Rocco Staino in School Library Journal. But it’s not alone. Borders moved the book from its children’s section to adult graphic novels in 2007. To be fair, the book does depict Africans as “simple savages prone to cowardice, superstition, and who use phrases like ‘White mister! You come save us!’”
The Brooklyn library says the Tintin book is “racist and depicts Africans as monkeys,” said Canadian blogger Raphael Alexander. But that’s not how it’s seen in the Congo, according to photographer Nuala Sawyer, who writes: “The funny thing is that the Congolese seem to embrace Tintin—I think that interpretations of racism are incredibly different in the Congo than the USA.”
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5 Comments
Posted by GD, Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 1:56 pm It'd be nice to know why the Congolese embrace Tintin and why they don't find it racist. I watched 'Song of the South' a few years back, having not seen it since I was a kid. Yep, the way Uncle Remus and other slaves accept whites owning them as if by divine right feels very wrong.
Posted by lb, Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 4:09 pm The Congolese who I showed the cartoon too in Congo found it very offensive and very racist.
Posted by Monica, Monday, September 7, 2009, 1:16 pm I found the comic disturbing when I came across it during an undergrad French class.
Posted by Christian, Monday, September 7, 2009, 2:02 pm As an avid Tintin reader, I find that Tintin in the Congo is far from actually being racist. In fact I believe that the book was hinting at the situation that the Congolese where in, if you have studied the history of the Belgian Congo and read this book, you may see the comic satire of the negative events that actually occurred. The books high points show Tintin helping the natives dispose of the European conquerors and sympathizers. Banning this book is another backwards step, as we must understand the past instead of destroying it.
Posted by Panos Kakaviatos, Saturday, September 19, 2009, 7:23 pm While I can understand the reaction of readers today, people should put this book in historical context. Banning it is just plain stupid and reeks of political correctness. Denying history does not erase history.
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