“Titin in the Congo” was a comic book that was written in 1930. This comic book shows the journey of a white European man to the nation of Congo. It shows all the interactions that the main character Titin had with the residents of the people in the country. This comic book seems to be a children’s book and a lot of the scenes in this book were written for comedy. The ideas and concepts of this book was how most Europeans in Europe thought of Belgian imperialism in Congo.

Titin who is a young reporter and Snowy, his dog are sent to observe and talk about the conditions and how life is in Congo. Once Titin and Snowy arrived at Congo, they are greeted with happiness and joy by the native residents. Herge portrays Titin and his dog as figures that are very well likened by the residents.

During one of the scenes in the book, Titin’s car is stuck on the train tracks and it crashes with a train. The train flipped over and Titin tries to get the native residents that  were on the train to flip the train back in its original position. But, the residents don’t want to help out and they say that they are tired and how they don’t want to get dirty. Meanwhile,  Snowy is the only one that is doing all the work. Titin who is not happy at this point tried to make them feel ashamed that a dog is doing all the work while the residents are just watching. Herge is trying to portray the natives of Congo as people that are lazy and making excuses to go to work.

In another scene of the book, Titin is taking a walk around the village with Snowy. His walk was interrupted with a fight between two residents that were arguing about a stolen beautiful straw hat. Titin quickly intervened and found a solution to the problem. Titin basically divided the hat into two parts and gave each resident a part. The two residents were content that Titin gave each of them a part of the hat. Titin destroyed the hat to create two separate parts and that made the residents very happy. Herge is trying to portray Titin as a very good leader that has very good problem solving skills. Titin is portrayed in this scene as someone that is very fair and is compared to Solomon of having a sense of wise judgement.

In this scene, Titin is stopped by a tribe in the forest. The tribe were excited and ecstatic to see a very surprised Titin. Titin is looking for Snowy at this point and the tribe took him to see Snowy. Snowy is seated on a throne with a crown on his head. The tribe see the dog as a very high subject that deserves a lot of respect. Herge is portraying Snowy as an animal that is well likened by the tribe and having a lot of power.

In the ending scene of the comic book, Titin and Snowy had already left Congo and this scene shows the reaction of the villagers  and the impact that Titin had on the society. A villager is seen worshiping two statues resembling Titin and Snowy.  A villager is shown telling another villager that the men in Europe are very similar to Titin. An elderly woman of the village is telling a young child that being good is like being Titin. An elderly man is telling a few young people that in his whole entire life, he had never seen someone as powerful as Titin was. The villagers had only all good and positive comments about Titin. Herge is portraying Titin as someone that had a huge positive impact on the nation. Titin was worshiped by the villagers and the elders were telling the youths about how powerful he was.

In the last chapter of the King Leopold’s Ghost, “The Great Forgetting”, Hochschild talked about how King Leopold and Belgium tried to cover up all the facts of what actually occurred. Leopold burned down his Congo papers before he died trying to make the path of tracing to the details to actually what happened in the Congo even tougher. Hochschild described the nation of Congo as an example of “the politics of forgetting”. (Hochschild 294) Leopold wanted people to forget about the horrific details of what happened in the Congo.

There has been lots of discussion whether or not this comic book should be banned. Overall, I think this should be banned and taken out of circulation. All the ideas that this comic book was trying to convey were all false. This book isn’t a good form of education but instead it is a form of promoting racism to its readers.

Citation:

H., Lonsdale-Cooper, L., & Turner, M. R. (2016). Tintin in the Congo. Tournai: Casterman.

Hochschlid, A. (1998). King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Book.