Tintin and the Book Bansturbators

Hergé’s Tintin has incurred the wrath of the commission for racial equality.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is calling on high street books to pull a Tintin adventure from its shelves over claims it is racist.

Given that Hergé wrote the story in the nineteen-thirties, a somewhat outdated approach to racial equality is hardly surprising. You will find other authors guilty of similar offences – read Merchant of Venice lately? So, yes, a book written in the thirties portraying inhabitants of the Congo in a less than flattering light is something I would expect. Like Shakespeare, Kipling and other authors of previous eras, I read their work in the context of the time that they were written and accept that they were people of their time with all the hang-ups and prejudices that went with those times. Not the CRE, though:

Complaints about Tintin and the Congo have led to Borders and Waterstones moving it to their adult section.

Frankly, those complaints should have been met with a polite “we will take your comments on board, sir” and then promptly ignored.

A spokeswoman said the book contained “words of hideous racial prejudice, where the ‘savage natives’ look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles”.

Well, yes. Hergé was a man of his time and at that time, white Europeans tended to have a racist approach to ex-colonials. That’s history, we cannot change it. What we can do is look at the literature of the time and remind ourselves how attitudes have changed. Of course, if we ban books, we cannot make that comparison, can we?

Borders said they are committed to let their “customers make the choice”.

Absolutely. Civilised societies do not ban books – or they damn well shouldn’t no matter how prejudicial the contents. It is up to the reader to make a conclusion – not the CRE.

The CRE spokewoman said: “How and why do Borders think that it’s okay to peddle such racist material?”

Because of the comments above for a start – and, not least, because it is none of the CRE’s business what Borders choose to stock on their shelves. Or do we not live in a civilised liberal democracy?

“It’s high time that they reconsidered their decision and removed this from their shelves,” she added.

No. No. No. A thousand times; no. Book banning is for totalitarian dictatorships. You might not like the contents of this book. You might cringe at the way that black people are portrayed; but you must do so while recognising the context and times in which it was written. Be appalled at the attitudes of our recent forefathers by all means, but do not ban books. Ever.

The book’s publishers Egmont said the book comes with a warning that it features “bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period – an interpretation some readers may find offensive”.

An eminently fair approach.

Indeed, I almost feel inclined to nip out and buy a copy.