Belgian Court Makes Weird Legal Decision; TinTin Not Banned

While I'm happy to know that a court has decided on the legal hubbub surrounding TinTin's place in its home country of Belgium (someone had filed a case against TinTin in the Congo to get it outlawed due to racist content), how the court has handled this seems a little strange.

The books will not be banned, as was the complainant's desire, but the court essentially ruled that the volumes could remain widely available because it, and Herge's intent, was not inherently racist.

Had the court felt otherwise, the decision might have not been the same, so while this is not exactly a victory for free speech, it is a victory for proponents of the notion that anyone should be able to read whatever they like from the past, when "historical context" regarding what is racist and what is not was different from what it is today.

Yeah, it's a muddied situation. Read more about it here.

_Tin Tin_ Racism Case *CAN* Be Heard in Belgium

Thanks to Sturge for the update on the case that Mbuto Mondondo has brought against Tin Tin in the Congo. Apparently if an image offends, it can be deemed illegal and harmful in Belgium. While I may not support the racist images in the book, I do not support the book being banned in any way. But, I'm an old-fashioned American who likes freedom of speech, not one of those hyper-lefty liberals like Lindsey Graham.

_Tin Tin in the Congo_ controversy Update

Thanks to Spurge for keeping us in the loop!

_Tin Tin in the Congo_ Case Going to Atleast May 12

The article linked to in the title of this post suggests the publisher will be called to give testimony on May 12, so perhaps reports that a decision would be made by the ruling body to ban Tin Tin in the Congo, which depicts Africans in very poor light, were premature. I'm trying to follow the story as best I can and have already weighed in on my support for keeping the texts available for anyone who chooses to read them.

Perhaps I'm getting more conservative in my old age, having seen my son move all four of his appendages in an ultrasound taken when he was only 2 months developed; having seen leftists with whom I used to identify reveal as much of a fascism as those on the far right; having seen those who espouse equal rights seem to really just want to replace the current power structures' personnel with people of their own best liking, focusing on the race or gender or sexuality of the participants rather than really changing the systems in and of themselves; having lived in a city where I'm a minority but still regarded as a majority figure; and, most recently, having seen folks unable to figure out what "illegal" means.

But, I feel that banning texts, language, etc. with unfortunate imagery and connotations from the past serves a terrible ironic purpose. If we make sure no one can experience these things, we may forget they ever existed, and then -- just like every generation of teenagers thinks they're the first to discover kinky sex -- we'll figure that if there's no evidence, it didn't really happen, stop thinking about it all together, or worse, since it hasn't really happened, begin to think that perhaps it's about time we started to put our stamp on it.

What's the old adage: Study history so it doesn't repeat itself? While I don't believe there's as much wisdom in that as there should be, as evidenced by human society's proclivity for doing the same stupid shit over and over again for thousands of years, I believe there is more wisdom in the phrase "censor your dirty realities and be unprepared when you begin to relive them."

UPDATE: Tom Spurgeon found more news on this case.

More Censorship: This Time Global

Thanks to The Beat for drawing my attention to this story about a Belgian trying to censor Herge's Tin Tin in the Congo by having it banned in Belgium due to its racist imagery.

While I can't defend how Africans and blacks have been portrayed in comics at times, these comics are very important artifacts, and it seems to me that removing them from view is more about controlling people's collective sense of themselves rather than giving them the opportunity to face historical facts, their faces and the faces of their artists.

"It makes people think black people have not evolved," said the Belgium.

Wrong. It reveals that you think readers are too stupid to realize the text is situated in a specific time and takes on a specific assumption set that, as appalling as it may be to many of us now, was prevalent for a few hundred years.

Another complaint is about an African woman bowing to a white man and saying, "White man great! White mister is big juju man!"

Here's a comment that will make me unpopular: White man is great. White man has had and still has big juju.

Black man is great too. So is brown man and yellow man and whatever. Each has had their imperialistic moments. Each has contributed great goods and great evils to society throughout history (to channel my inner Johnny Cochran, my point is that "Good and Great do not always Equate!"). Even if one confronts versions of power and realities in texts that one has the right not to read if one so chooses, censoring evidence of these facts is just plain stupid, like what Herge's characters and contemporaries might have thought about the intelligences of Africans-level stupid.