Burning children’s books.
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My response :
It isn’t by erasing the past that you rectify it. This shows distrust in people’s ability to discern. I grew up withTintin and Asterix. I am not a racist. I do not personally like the two books mentioned, and would not choose them for children. But they should be published as examples of past attitudes, and criticised; not destroyed.
When I think back on Tintin in America, of course, the native Americans in it are cartoons, because everyone in it is a cartoon. Tintin saves them by exposing the machinations of a white scammer who attempts to cheat them of their land.
Herge’s colonialism is the paternalistic kind. His Tintin protects the natives against unscrupulous whites. But paternalism is still racist, of course.
Tintin in America also exposes the production line Fordism of American industry and its desensitizing removal of the person from the process of production.
Marxist Internet Archive has a children’s literature section
https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/children/index.htm
Tintin in the Congo was never offered to children in English anyway. It was only recently translated into English on the proviso that it be kept apart from the Tintin canon in English as a curiosity for adults.
“WOKE.”
(A letter to a friend):
Have you heard of the “Woke” movement?
It is taking over schools and universities.
It is intolerant of anyone against it.
It has many aspects. One is the prohibition of words such as “Man” and “Woman”, “male” and “female.”
In Scotland, a boy was suspended from college for saying there are only two sexes.Another aspect is the erasing of history, especially colonial history. There are calls for books to be banned and destroyed. Classic films too.
“Woke” people have attacked paintings and statues. Often, they are attacking the wrong things. They want classic books destroyed if they deem anything in them to be racist, imperialist, or sexist.
Seeing as modern capitalist European and American society was rooted in colonialism and racism, this means the destruction of most classic books and films, Tintin included.
I am anti-racist, but I am not “Woke.”
I think “Woke” are fascists. They don’t trust people to make up their own minds about what we look at, hear or read; so they say we have to be “protected” by them destroying things we “shouldn’t” be reading, listening to or looking at.(To a Japanese friend):
“Woke” is the same as saying all Japanese literature and art should be destroyed, because it was made at the expense of serf-labour.
https://www.tintin.com/en/news/5566/tintin-in-america-is-back
“Hergé’s fascination for the Native American world began when he was just a boy and remained with him for his entire life. He participated in the Scouts while at high school in Brussels where he learned all about traditional dress, customs, and their relationship with the natural world. While Hergé’s depiction of Native Americans is somewhat controversial today, it must be said his drawings include many accuracies that came from his extensive knowledge and research.
© Hergé / Tintinimaginatio 2020
One particular example is the dispute over oil possession, which is still a significant issue today. America continues to be the largest oil producer in the world, and its first discovery in the U.S. dates back centuries. In the early 1900s, Native American tribes moved to new oil-rich territories in the West, but they were not to be there long; news spread quickly of their astounding discovery and competition soon rose. White settlers did all they could to get their hands on such a profitable resource; they even went as far as plotting and carrying out murder! The assassination of members of the Osage tribe during the 1920s is a well-known case which involved explosions, shootings and poisonings until finally, they succeeded in claiming what they believed to be rightfully theirs.
Of course, we live in more peaceful times, (although that is somewhat disputable…) yet oil debates are still ongoing in several states as Native tribes protest against government-funded oil projects. The Dakota Access Pipeline for example is one long opposed by those such as the Sioux tribes who fear for their sacred land as well as their water supplies. Not only that, they are fighting for a reduction in fossil fuel usage in exchange for more environmentally friendly methods to help the issue of global warming. An important lesson to be learned which will undoubtably save our world in years to come.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/featuring-death-grief-children-books-190010365.html
Featuring death and grief in children’s books can equip them with skills to navigate emotional terrain
As a child, the best way to get me interested in a book was to tell me that I shouldn’t read it. I am sure the publishers of Lady Chatterley’s Lover were absolutely thrilled at all of the publicity.
On being banned, Alice Cooper has said ““They helped us so much just because of the fact that they kept going, ‘Oh this band will never play England’, and we got banned in Russia, everywhere, and of course every teenager in the world wanted to go see Alice Cooper at that point then.”
and
“but we couldn’t have paid them enough to say what they said.”
Tin-tin in America drawing goes for €2m
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/feb/11/tintin-in-america-herge-drawing-auction-record
Tintin and the Brexit Plan.https://www.joeydevilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/tintin-and-the-brexit-plan.jpg
Picture should read TINTIN AND CAPITALISM.
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