(Paris) Without much promotion, Tintin in the Congo was re-released in November in a new, colorized version, with a new cover but, above all, for the first time with a foreword that contextualizes this album the glory of colonization.
Published yesterday at 11:09 p.m.
Hugues HONORÉ Agence France-Presse
Tintin in the Congo by Hergé was reissued in the original version, published in serial form in Le Petit Vingtième in 1930–1931 and in volume form in 1931. Back then it was in black and white, Moulinsart and Casterman added colors.
The album will be sold in a box entitled “Les colorisés” and will be released on November 1st. These also include “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets” (1930) and “Tintin in America” (1932).
The publisher communicated very little about this publication despite its importance. Pascal Blanchard, a historian specializing in colonial fantasy and propaganda, had never heard of it before AFP showed it to him.
“It is very interesting and intelligent of them to do this work. Because we have to publish Tintin the way it was back then,” he says. But “I find it surprising that the cover does not mention this foreword. And let that little Congolese boy disappear: they de-racialized that cover! » In the 2023 edition, Tintin faces a lion.
Readers are more familiar with the 1946 color version of Tintin in the Congo, in which Tintin is at the wheel. This album has been completely reworked. Example: Indoors, Tintin is giving a math lesson to Congolese schoolchildren, while his lesson originally (and therefore in the 2023 edition) is about “Your home country: Belgium!” …”
“Pure paternalistic spirit”
Controversy has never really subsided for more than half a century about the young reporter's adventures in this very vast country, which was a Belgian colony from 1908 to 1960. Above all, one question: Are the black characters in the album only portrayed in a caricatured way or are they frankly racist?
Hergé himself witnessed this controversy at the end of his life. He replied to journalist Numa Sadoul in 1975: “I only knew about this country what people said about it. […] I drew them, these Africans, according to these criteria, in the purest paternalistic spirit of the time.”
The author chosen for this foreword is not a neutral observer. Philippe Goddin, comics expert, is chairman of the association Les Amis de Hergé.
He examined in detail the sources chosen by Hergé, both iconographic for his drawing and textual for his scenario. And he doesn't see racism.
“It is said that Hergé made a disgusting caricature of the Congolese. Racist, he? He defended himself vigorously […] He gleefully mocks everyone, white and black alike,” the foreword reads.
A position he explains to AFP: “We are racist from the moment we want to denigrate, humiliate the other, which is not the case with Tintin in the Congo.” Of course there are stereotypes, caricatures. Hergé insisted on big lips and flat noses, like many designers of his time. But for me he doesn’t cross the line between caricature and racism, even if it is fragile.”
Sponge of his time?
Pascal Blanchard says he is not convinced.
“This foreword is very questionable. She tells us that Hergé was a simple sponge of his time. It’s frivolous, it’s wrong,” he believes.
“Hergé made a political decision to ignore the sources describing the violence of colonization,” the historian adds. “And Philippe Goddin abuses a paradox: by showing us that Hergé is closest to the photos that reach him from the Congo, he considers that the iconography of the colonies has become a source of the would become truth. No, it’s propaganda.”
Pascal Blanchard would have liked more: “a second foreword signed by a great historian like Elikia M'Bokolo,” a Congolese Africa specialist in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Representative Council of Black Associations (Cran), a French collective, has repeatedly questioned the need to add a foreword to “Tintin in the Congo,” to no avail. Today he welcomes the 2023 foreword.
“We have been fighting for this since 2007, so it is satisfactory. Common sense prevailed,” Cran founder Patrick Lozès told AFP.
“This album is a reminder of a fortunately bygone time when it was acceptable to view black people as inferior,” he added. “On the album, Africans are the only ones who express themselves like idiots. Even a dog speaks better than her. We can no longer confront young readers with this without context and without explanation.”