Tintin 'to be sued' for Congo book

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

[paudio]

Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, 41, is taking legal action claiming Hergé's controversial Tintin In The Congo is propaganda for colonialism and amounts to "racism and xenophobia".

"Tintin's little (black) helper is seen as stupid and without qualities. It makes people think that blacks have not evolved," he said.

Mr Mbutu Mondondo launched a case in Belgium two years ago for symbolic damages of one euro from Tintin's Belgian publishers Moulinsart, and demanded the book be withdrawn from the market.

[blam]

"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."

What group of 'Native Americans'?

Vintage Skulls

BTW, I suspect the 'Vintage Skull' folks are of the Ainu type as well as Kennewick Man and Spirit Cave Man

[Army Air Corps]

Cherokee (maternal great grandfather was born on a reservation).

[nina0113]

When I saw the headline I wondered if the author could possibly still be alive to be sued, but this guy's going after the publisher. Considering the current state of Euro-weeniness, he'll probably win. I'm heading over to Amazon now to get my copy.

[nina0113]

When was he last time they had a genocide?

Nanking?

[SunkenCiv]

thanks Cincinna.

and thanks grellis:

Of Toms and Sambos (MUST READ!)
Digital Publius | August 26th, 2009 | Hassan Nurullah
Posted on 09/02/2009 7:51:30 AM PDT by Jenny Hatch
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2330344/posts

[cookcounty]

Tintin is fantastic! My son loved the books, in French as well as English.

[Berosus]

Mr. Herge, the author, died at least twenty years ago. Obviously the guy filing the lawsuit doesn’t know how old these stories are. He might as well go after Rudyard Kipling while he’s at it.

[SunkenCiv]

Or the cartoonist who did “Asterix”. ;’)

[scripter]

ping

[himno hero]

Dude, it done blowed out!

Thank you for the education on the Great Zimbabwe and Mutapa of which I had zero awareness. Once Bob is gone, I will have and check them out. Axum and Meroe I have discounted long ago thinking they are not African and still today although the people occupied areas of Africa. It would have been nice to see more.

[Nam Vet]

Hey ! Thanks for that darlin' ! It's been so long since I've seen those illustrations. I don't know where my original book went.

I'm just totally sick of all the thin-skinned idiots. I'm getting to the point that I'm ready to start insulting them at every turn. I'm accused to being all the bad things anyway.....might as well 'tweek their beaks'. heh heh.

Nam Vet

[Cincinna]

Nice to hear from you again, WC.

I love Tintin as well. Wish he were better known here in the US.

Has there ever been a Tintin movie or cartoon made in France?

[WesternCulture]

“Has there ever been a Tintin movie or cartoon made in France?”

- Hello my friend,

These links ought to provide you with some answers to that question;

http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/screen/index.html

http://www.tintinologist.org/guides/screen/movies.html

[Cincinna]

Merci bien!

[Cincinna]

“Tintinology!” The French think of everything.

I see that la rentree has Sarko ahead in the polls.

Arthur Goldhammer, a professor of French at Harvard has an interesting website on French Politics. He does lean to the left, but sees French politics from a more objective point of view than he views the US and Obamamania.

http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com/

[Cronos]

That is a genius, if twisted, cartoon.

[Cronos]

Please do — let me see if I have the links for the special days at that museum and will send it to you

[Cronos]

Tintin, Asterix etc are pretty big in India I think — your husband must be from the big cities, Bombay or Calcutta or Delhi

[Cronos]

Well, all evidence points towards Japanese being descended from Koreans — they both speak a Tungushic language and are not descended from Han CHinese

[Cronos]

They have never had a civilization. Sure we can claim egyptians... other than that nothing.

Yes and no -- the pre-dynastic and old Kingdom egyptians (who build the pyramids and were there until 1700 BC) were definitely not "black" i.e. sub-saharan Africans. They were related to Berbers.

After the 1st interregnum when the Hyksos came (Hyksos being definitely Semitic, maybe even the ancestors of the Hebrews and other Canaanites), the Egyptians would have Semitic blood.

Then in the middle Kingdom, the Egyptians headed south to conquer parts of Nubia and into Ethiopia.

And the Ethiopians are NOT sub-saharans, not Bantu speakers but rather related to Semites like the Yemenis, Hebrews etc.

The Nubians may have some amount of Sub-Saharan blood, but I'd consider them a different race -- they also had a civilisation dating back at least to 1000 BC -- way before any advanced civilisation in Europe outside Italy and Greece.

And Ethiopian civilisation of course dates back to at least 1000 BC too

Next, you have the Phoenicians who set up shop along North Africa at least by 1000 BC with Carthage dominating

And Berber civilisation (nomadic, but a long-lasting civilisation).

Then, coming to "black" sub-saharan Africa, there WERE civilisations in West Africa like the Gambian kingdom and various other Kingdoms in that area between Senegal and Nigeria, though they later got influenced by Islam. In the East, you had Great Zimbabwe (I don't know much about this) which dates around pre-1000 AD and the Zulus from the 1800s.

The latter two were just about into the Bronze or Iron age in the 1800s when Europeans came in


Anyway, summing up -- YES there were many AFRICAN civilisations dating from at least 4000 BC or earlier, but among the sub-saharan Africans, the earliest dates are in the Christian era and mostly from 700 AD and among southern africans, the dates are even later. Among the Congolese there was NO civilisation to speak of before the Belgians came. Don't forget that the Belgians were also utter beasts in the Congo (comparing them to the modern-day beasts are applicable -- the modern-day ones were maybe worse, however, that doesn't give a civilised society like the Belgians the right to act like uncivilised brutes)