Bienvenu Mbutu, a Congolese man living in Belgium, has filed to have “Tintin in the Congo” Banned there. A couple years ago the UK moved to have the same title published with a notice from now on warning young readers of it’s racist content. There’s been a number of reports covering the story, here’s some links i turned up in a quick search. And from them, two quotes i think are insightful.
The first, from the author. Hergé himself later expressed remorse over the book. “I was fed on the prejudices of the bourgeois society in which I moved,”
And the second: From Mr Mbutu. “It makes people think that blacks have not evolved,”
thestar.com: Tintin’s sins: Belgium reckons with its comic hero’s racist past. Call it Tintin in the Land of the Censors. On May 31, a Belgian court will decide whether to ban or at least enforce a disclaimer on the sale of children’s book Tintin in the Congo, due to its racially insensitive depictions of the Congolese.
news.bbc.co.uk: Includes a clipA Congolese man is trying to get a controversial Tintin book banned in the cartoon star’s home country of Belgium. The ginger sleuth’s “little (black) helper” in Tintin in the Congo is seen as “stupid and without qualities”, Bienvenu Mbutu is quoted as saying.”
time.com: Tintin: Heroic Boy Reporter or Sinister Racist? As an explorer, crime fighter and all-around hero, comic-strip icon Tintin has been an inspiration for generations. But his status as a paragon of wholesome adventure is under threat, thanks to a court bid to ban one of his books, Tintin in the Congo, for its racist portrayal of Africans.
timesonline.co.uk: Tintin book is crude, racist and must be banned, says watchdog. A cartoon adventure featuring Tintin, the heroic Belgian journalist, should not be sold in Britain, the Commission for Racial Equality said yesterday.

2 Comments

  1. typo or not, great headline!
    happy 103rd birthday Herge!

  2. Author

    He would, it seems, have a approved.

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