Even Tintin!!!!
I am a big fan of Tintin, the renowned comic character from Herge, and who isn't.. And now that my brother got the whole animated series, I started watching it with extreme pleasure. My parents could not understand why.. Luckily I don't have to explain.
My point is: up until now I thought I have read aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllll the Tintin book.
Wrong........ And those of you in the Arab world... you didn't either.
Two stories: Tintin and the black gold, and Tintin and the red sea sharks, have not been made into Arabic.. And now I know why.
Both books contain the character of a "Gulf" emir and his tricks-loving son Abdullah. In one of the stories the Emir gets overthrown and seizes control again. His character is not an evil one though. Looking back in the Tintin and the crabs with the golden claws, were the main events take place in Morocco or Algeria, that story contained evil arab characters, but no emirs. And this book was published.
So what conclusion can we get??? shouldn't have an "Arabic symbol" represented in kids books?? even if they were not evil?? or is it because it is perceived as bad??
But regardless of the reason... even Tintin would get tabooed and censored?? What a shame
posted by Bassam @ 8:49 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Hi Bassam, I actually read both "Tintin and the black gold", and "Tintin and the red sea sharks" in English. However, they're not the only ones that were not translated to Arabic. There is also "Cigars of the Pharaoh" which takes place in Egypt and many others like "In the Land of the Soviets". I'm so curious about this one, haven't read it yet. My favourit adventure is "The Seven Crystal Balls" and "The Temple of the Sun" maybe because I'm fascinated by the colors and mystery of the Inkas??!! what's your favourit??
Hi there.
Bana, you are right, I missed those, in addition to that the "Tintin in the Congo" is not also translated into arabic.
Anyway, I did my research now (the post was just an idea) and I found that even "the lands of soviet" was not translated to english till after 60 years. That was the first tintin novel in 1929 or 30. Then followed the "congo" book that, to be fair enough, I haven't read. But some of comment in site list this as a project imposed on Herge by his employer to show the benefit of imperialism.. apparently tintin was racist in that book, at least the original version, then this was lessened in the reedited version, with Herge apologizing for the silliness of things in the book. I guess he was only 19 yrs old at the time.
apart from that, can't see Herge as a racist himself just by judging from tintin books. In almost every book, which took places in all continents, there will be good and bad in the same region. Looks anyway that he is not much into communism and totalitarian regimes. and in fact, tintin is more developed into the character of a good hearted adventurous journalist.
To briefly answer your question Fadi, I don't think anything should be banned. We are in an open world now. But what needs to happen is use the material to invoke thoughts and rationalism in the child, so a parent or a guide should not let something like this be watched or read without discussing it.
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