It seems Tintin is a racist.
That’s what the Commission for Racial Equality, a government watchdog, has declared after thumbing through Tintin In Congo. They were referring to the following:
1. The portrayal of the Congo people and monkeys are facially indistinguishable.
2. The Deifying of Tintin and Snowy by the people of Congo.
3. They also objected to the way he treats animals (older versions showed him stuffing a stick of dynamite into an ox)
The exact quote from their spokeswoman: “This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the “savage natives” look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles.”
Have a look at the photos below: you can see clearly that the natives are portrayed as rather comical and monkey-like. I tried to find a caricature of a monkey from the book, but couldn’t find it.
It seems that this book has a historical context– Congo was a Belgian Colony (the creator of Tintin, Herge was a Belgian citizen). The comic tried to glorify the name of Belgium, deliberately set in a region the colonial power was eager to hang on to. This story showed the dual face of colonialism, an exploitation of the natives and also the benevolence of Belgium through provision of infrastructure, utilities, health services and education.
This fact has been documented and denounced publicly earlier. In fact, Herge himself admitted to regretting certain caricatures in this volume.
My question to you as an educator is this:
1) Should we be shielding our children from comics like these? If yes, how far can you go?
2) Is there a possibility to use these comics as a tool to explain the zeitgeist back in Colonial Europe as many of the Imperialistic powers scrounged to hold on to their fiefdoms?
I am not in favour of racism, but nor am I in favour of mollycoddling our children. Comics are an evocative, visually-rich media and reactions like this will happen. That shouldn’t drive us to pull them off children books shelf. What will be next – puritans questioning the Batman-Robin relationship or the relative absence of clothing on various comic heroines like Teela and Sheeba?
The comic may have been moved from the kids section to the adult section (action by Borders post the watchdog comments) but this publicity would only drive more kids to it. Unlike with alcohol, you can’t stop a child from buying it from there.
As always, I look forward to hear what you want to say. Have a good weekend!
Update: See an update to this post here
Funny that we would look to racist material for “instruction,” no? We can do better.
Why is it “mollycoddling” our children to say “hey, there are thousands of interesting, cute, engaging, instructive, and helpful children’s books out there. Let’s look at those instead of this hateful, murderous ideology.”? Let’s be clear: these are images from colonialism, which killed tens of millions of innocent people. And I don’t think it is too much to imagine black children being hurt by the images, really.
Sure, you can use these sorts of things as examples of racism. But having them in the kids section of a bookstore is hardly that. Kids ramble around Borders while mom and dad read magazines and sip coffee. Borders is not an intensive seminar on race and history. It’s a bookstore.
I don’t think you’re in favor of racism. But I do think you show some indifference to the harm racist images might do to children. If you’re wondering “what is the causal relationship between these images and racism?,” well, I can’t give you that. I can refer you to my recent post on the Tintin stuff, though (click on my name).
I’d rather ask you the questions above and: why Tintin? I’d like to hear you or others justify the choice to consume and enjoy racist materials, when you could have chosen so many other books. That’s what comes to mind for me.
Or I might ask, in the name of another blog post:
http://mp285.com/2007/tintin-nostalgia-and-the-question-of-harm/
Why choose something that makes black people feel like shit, when you could have chose otherwise?
Those are sincere questions, so please don’t read them as veiled accusations…seriously! I just think the stakes are really, really high.
John,
Thank you for coming, reading and offerings your comments. I appreciate your observations.
The facts you present are valid: colonialsm was a time when atrocities were committed. It was also a time of development for the colonised (I come from India). The balance however, may be in the favour of the former.
Black children may be hurt by this volume. Given.
But does this mean they should not read it, even if supervised and guided by adults, teachers and care-givers? I think not. Yes, there are many materials that are happy, informative and non-racist as you offer. However, a juxtaposition often presents a more compelling image for understanding.
I think your post is extremely well written and I’ve tied a thread around my finger to remind me to be at your blog often.
Warm regards,
Vivek
I appreciate your response.
I do think the African experience of colonialism, especially in the case of Congo, has largely lacked a sense of development. Hochschild, in King Leopold’s Ghost, goes further, claiming that colonialism in Central Africa in fact developed nothing but totalitarian approaches to government. But that’s another question.
I’d quibble with the term “atrocities” here, thought that might be a regional-use issue. For me, atrocity resonates as something that happens alongside otherwise neutral (or diminishedly evil) actions. Colonial Congo under Leopold was a murderous, enslaved machine. So, this makes me a bit more sensitive to Tintin au Congo, I guess.
Again, though, I don’t imagine this book’s being sold in the children’s section of Borders as anything but gruesome. It’s not a children’s book by any measure. It is an historical document of particularly ugly ideology, one that (to keep it Belgium-Congo specific, as per the author’s nationality and the place described) killed half of the Congolese living there. Those caricatures bear that ideology.
This book is one for the archive, the library. With it there, one can use it for example if needed. But at the bookstore? I just don’t see the argument for keeping it in the children’s section. The “adult” section? Again, why the passion for keeping it?
I think the post I cited above from http://mp285.com is particularly helpful here. By engaging and enjoying the book, one has to ask the question: am I complicit in this? Why do I hold on to this book, when there are so many others?
In my country (the U.S.), as well, the idea that black kids are hurt by this book is really urgent. As in the U.K.
[…] 18th, 2007 by vivek I blogged a few days ago about the Tintin racism row and commented that “it was much a do about nothing” since this ‘concern’ by […]