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TinTin lawyers fight race ban
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Race row: book at centre of controversy
LAWYERS REPRESENTING the estate of Belgian cartoonist, Hergé have called legal attempts to ban his book, ‘Tintin in the Congo’ on grounds of racial discrimination, a form of “book burning”
Courts are investigating whether Tintin’s 1931 adventures in Congo, portray Africans in a racist way.
In 2007 The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) claimed the book depicted ‘hideous racial prejudice’ and that it should be removed from sale. This led to Borders and Waterstones moving the children’s book to their adult section.
At the time a spokeswoman said the book contained “words of hideous racial prejudice, where the ‘savage natives’ look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles”
Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, a Brussels-based Congolese man, has spent the past three years pursuing Tintin’s copyright holders and publisher in the civil and criminal courts to get the book banned.
‘Tintin In The Congo’ features an African sidekick named Coco who is portrayed as a 'little black helper, stupid and without qualities', according to Bienvenu Mbutu.
Mr Mbutu is demanding the book be stripped from the shelves or printed with a warning that it contains 'racist content'.
In one scene a black woman is featured bowing before Tintin and exclaiming: 'White man very great. White mister is big juju man!'
'It makes people think that blacks have not evolved,' said Mr Mbutu.
Alian Berenboom, a lawyer, said: “To ban books is to burn them”
Author Herge once said he had been influenced by the naïve colonial views of the 1920s and described the book as a 'youthful sin'.
The controversy prompted a 3,800 per cent sales rise, catapulting the book from 4,343rd to 5th in the Amazon bestseller chart in just four days.
Published: 07 June 2010
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