The lawsuit against the Casterman for the title Tintin in the Congo of Hergé returns to an argument and will be held May 12 It was initiated by the Congolese Democratic Welcome Mbutu Mondondo whose aggressiveness and obstinacy on the issue are well established. While we can not blame him for defending a worthy cause, the fact remains that I disagree with this approach that indirectly may erase evidence of a colonial ideology. Here, below, what I said to David Caviglioli - Nouvel Observateur journalist and BibliObs, the site of this week - who had interviewed on the subject.
BibliObs:
What do you remember from reading "Tintin in the Congo"?
Alain Mabanckou:
I read the "Tintin" during my childhood in Congo. At that time I had no recoil to understand the "dark side" of things. I was amused, seduced like most kids my age. In sum, the adventures of Tintin rubbed those Zembla, Blek le Roc, Tex Willer, Tarzan. It would almost be ungrateful not to recognize that these comic books have shaped my imagination. Hence the allusion that I do in my novel Black Bazaar (Seuil, 2009) where a character wonders what became of the routes when it was Tintin in the Congo. Colonial roads are in disrepair because of inaction by States in the black. Behind the humor "black", I paid probably indirectly tribute to a character who rocked my childhood. It was also not the first time I mentioned Tintin. We find allusions to this character in another of my novels, Broken Glass (Seuil, 2005).
BibliObs:
you qualify the representations related to Africans, in comics, racists?
AM:
It is clear that in "Tintin in the Congo" Representations of Black - the Negro was going to say - have a connotation paternalistic, racist and colonialist. The album appeared in 1931 has undergone "redevelopment "Later. Hergé had therefore heard all the criticism against this work. However, these rearrangements were nothing compared to the very spirit of the comic strip that was not retouched. Hergé has changed for example the scene where Tintin teaches a lesson that blacks begins: "My dear friends I'll show you your homeland, Belgium . This lesson has become a mathematics lesson in editing. This is not what bothers because our parents, colonized by France, also taught that their ancestors were Gauls! "Tintin in the Congo" shows Blacks in the state of barbarism, without spirit and speak in a language intended to replicate their imbecility, the language that the author estimated the height of "those people". In his defense, Hergé had argued he bathed as "everybody" in this ideology about black people. At that time that thought was dominant. What I think is inaccurate since well before the release of "Tintin in the Congo", many European intellectuals regarded differently Africa and Africans.
Between 1927 and 1929, for example, books argued for major upgrading of the status of the black man, and these works were So pleas against colonialism. I think the two books published Andre Gide ( Voyage au Congo and Chad Return) or to Earth Ebony d 'Albert London. Furthermore, although one can blame the Enlightenment, the fact remains that the time was that of humanism and thus finding a balance between men. Hergé could not ignore that. He had therefore made an important choice: to legitimize the colonization of the Congo by Belgium in his work. Indeed there were many Belgians do not want to go to this distant land. He had to propaganda. In this sense, Hergé gave a big hand in the Belgian colonial system, and "Tintin in the Congo" - relatively speaking - was also "strategic" than the propaganda that was broadcasting the French army to encourage people to go to fight in Algeria.
BibliObs:
Should we focus on the historical context of the work to the work itself?
AM:
Readers adult can read "Tintin in the Congo with a little more perspective. Because he knows - in principle - that the colonial question at the heart of this book. But what about the children, all these young people have learned that colonial history in a positive light? And it's dangerous to speak of a "historical context" even though the colonial question is still relevant today. What is happening to blacks in the world today is the result of a racist ideology entrenched in the minds of some pernicious spirits. Pick up any history book in France, a book to the curriculum, and notice what is said of the settlement! A glorification, a claim the grandeur of the colonial power, which provide the lights went off there, in remote areas, the heart of darkness!
BibliObs:
What do you think of this controversy? Would you favor a ban, or from a perspective of the content of the album in its reissues?
AM:
No, I am not in favor of a ban on this comic. It must remain a trace of the spirit Belgian those thirties. It is a historical evidence of some Western thought - but not all Western thought! The controversy surrounding this work may verge on absurdity to force things that do not read at an angle "Africanist" or even "fundamentalist." This is not from "Tintin in the Congo" that the thought of the White Negro was formed. When Tintin is "arrived in the Congo", the colonial and racist ideology on Black was already well established.
It goes back to the source, deconstruct that thought and ask the real question: how to teach colonization children? Yes, colonization is a topic poorly discussed in France - a subject that is almost "explosive". And until it happens that many still believe in the full positive role of Europe in Africa. Colonization is a control, period. It is ridiculous to consider adding an educational text in the album "Tintin in the Congo". Why not, then do so in The Spirit of Laws Montesquieu, which stated that people in the south are low as the elderly and that northerners are strong as young men? At this rate it is going to have to reread all the books in the world and add some educational pages here and there!
Once again, just to teach objectively colonization in France, an early-age for children to forge their conscience and look at the Other to its fair value. When a kid, you always think that the hero of a work are real. By learning these same children colonial thought they would finally be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Interview by David Caviglioli
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