Tintin 'to be sued' for Congo book

telegraph.co.uk ^ | 01 Sep 2009 | Henry Samuel

[Disambiguator]

We have that one (along with most of the rest of them).

[blam]

"Well, the rape of Nanking was definitely a genocide. And they have (or had) eliminated other races from their island, including the Caucasian Ainu and even Koreans (from whom the Japanese are descended)"

The Samurai And The Ainu

[WesternCulture]

This is not the first time I hear of ridiculous Congolese accusations.

Recently, Congo sued Norway for $500 billion US dollars!

http://stormen.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/congo-sues-norway-for-500-billion-dollars/

Last year, a certain Mr. Jean-Dadou Monya tried to get “Tintin in Congo” banned over here in Sweden. Hardly surprising, he wasn't successful and few people cared.

http://www.thelocal.se/8271/20070823/

In the 1940s and earlier, the attitudes most white people shared towards Africans often was condescending and full of prejudice, yes.

BUT; By banning books, films etc made in those days that bear testimony to this, we run the risk of this historic fact falling into oblivion.

Is that what we should strive for?

[WesternCulture]

Hello again, Cincinna!

To me, the adventures of Tintin are a wonderful part of my childhood.

My father read the Tintin stories to me and my brother before we were able of reading them ourselves.

I would like to say Tintin and his friends have contributed to making me the man I am today.

For instance, Le capitaine Archibald Haddock is a great source of inspiration to me.

Seriously speaking.

I can think of more profane invectives than his “Freshwater pirates!” (don't recall what album this expression is from, I'll have to google a bit), but not of a more degrading one.

I'm not easily offended myself.

People can call me whatever they want as long as they don't compare me to complete losers like actual freshwater pirates:D

[Praxeologue]

The “journalist”, Henry Samuel, is informing us that “TinTin in the Congo” is “controversial”. This is, yet again, opinion disguised as reporting. I thought better of The Telegraph.

[stormer]

One of Africa's biggest problems is that people only believe what they want to and end up not knowing what they're talking about.

Africa has some serious problems, not the least of which is the commodization of everything. It's a mindset that places a value on money rather than skills and is a direct result of colonial policies. You don't get to blame Islam for everything.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

One of Africa's biggest problems is that people only believe what they want to and end up not knowing what they're talking about.

I think you can substitute just about any noun for "Africa" in that sentence.

Coincidentally, I'm reading this book right now. Not a happy story.

[Revolting cat!]

I recommend you read about the author.

[Army Air Corps]

Very interesting link. A good chunk of my ancestry is “Native” American (personally, I like the Canadian phrase “First Nations” better) and I have long been fascinated by the possible links between First Nations peoples and Asian peoples.

[himno hero]

Sorry bud, when I have had to buy goats for sacrifices for voodoo... and islam is very much alive in the communities...

that comes straight from islamic tradition not african

[himno hero]

Their other largest problem aside from being either voodeo christian or muslim is the simple thing of education. Western education... dare I say it! OOOOhhhhh thats racist...
Face it they as a people are still 2000 years behind the rest of the world. They are in a difficult place. They have never had a civilization.
Sure we can claim egyptians... other than that nothing. So they are in fact lost so to speak and having to find their way.

Look at central america... evidence abound of meso america where they had full civilizations.

Africa? nothing, nada, zip. They never had a start other than their tribal feudal thing and they havent been able to get past it. Their system will not allow it at grass roots level.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Ah, he’s a leftist. So there was no forced labor system in the Belgian Congo, no mass amputation of hands, no mass starvation. The population of the Congo didn’t drop by half over 40 years. It’s all a lie. Is that what you’re saying?

[Revolting cat!]

Not just a leftist, a dedicated Communist, self-hating, West hating rich Jew. Credible source? Is Congo better off today? Is he interested in comparisons? Would he ever compare Congo to the gulags? Do you enjoy Western self-flaggelation?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Credible source?

Be specific. What is incorrect in his story? Were all the contemporary reports of atrocities coming out of the Belgian Congo from missionaries and others the work of dedicated Communist, self-hating, West hating rich Jews, too? Were all those photographs of people holding up their amputated stumps just some primitive Photoshop work?

Is Congo better off today? Is he interested in comparisons? Would he ever compare Congo to the gulags?

You haven't read the book, have you? He brings the story up to the present, talking about the corruption of the country under Mobutu, which basically continued the kleptocracy of the colonial system, with merely a differently colored guy with a penchant for naming everything after himself at the top. He also very specifically compares the colonial forced labor system to the gulag system in a couple of places.

From page 162:

Hostage-taking set the Congo apart from most other forced-labor regimes. But in other ways it resembled them. As would be true decades later of the Soviet gulag, another slave labor system for harvesting raw materials, the Congo operated by quotas.

From page 233:

Why then, did the killings go on for so long? The same irrationality lies at the heart of many other mass murders. In the Soviet Union, for example, shooting or jailing political opponents at first helped the Communist Party and then Josef Stalin gain absolute power. But after there were no visible opponents left, seven million more people were executed, and many millions more died in the far-flung camps of the gulag.... In the Congo, as in Russia, mass murder had a momentum of its own.

There are a couple of others, as well.

[Revolting cat!]

We might as well re-read Jessica Mitford and William Mandel, too, both of them Communist propagandists. No, I won't read a book by another one of them. Mary McCarthy said this about Jessica Mitford: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'" This quote applies to every Communist propagandist, regardless of some factoids about lost limbs they bring up (cue the violins), which happen to be true. Let's concern ourselves with the savagery in today's Zimbabwe (for instance), or Congo, about which Mr Hochschild will not write, you can bet your bottom dollar, or if he will, he'll blame the white race. It's as easy to write about King Leopold as it is about Hitler, a little harder about Patrice Lumumba.

[stormer]

Like I said, you don't know WTF you're talking about. Look up Mutapa, Great Zimbabwe, Axum, or Meroe. On the other hand, you probably better not - these's a chance you'll learn something that conflicts with your juvenile perspective and your head might explode.

[FreedomPoster]

Rummel had to adjust his 20th Century numbers in a major way, with King Leopold being a main cause.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Let's concern ourselves with the savagery in today's Zimbabwe (for instance), or Congo, about which Mr Hochschild will not write, you can bet your bottom dollar, or if he will, he'll blame the white race.

I'll take that bet.

The Rape of the Congo

[Revolting cat!]

You win.

[Poe White Trash]

Have you read Mark Twain’s _King Leopold’s Soliloquy_? Worth your while, if you haven’t.

http://diglib1.amnh.org/articles/kls/index.html