Round-up

1. A Congolese student is asking for the banning of a 1931 Tintin book in which the character visits the Congo, because it is "racist".

I absolutely agree with the book's publisher, which said that it "must be seen as a document of the time. In his portrayal of the Belgian Congo, the young Hergé reflects the colonial attitudes of the time. He depicted the African people according to the bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period." Should it be banned? I don't think so, but I can see how it could be offensive to the Congolese. Although as always with these things I wonder, do they have to be so thin-skinned? Does it really upset them THAT much that nearly eighty years ago someone drew some pictures which stereotyped their people? Seems an over-reaction to me.

2. The Finnish government are looking towards zero tolerance of discrimination in the implementing of immigration policy, stepping up action against racism and promoting good ethnic relations. "Even a racist joke meets the criteria of racism", said one of their politicians. Apparently the new immigration policy programme puts the focus on multi-culturalism and anti-discrimination measures. It is committed to "promoting good ethnic relations and preventing discrimination based on ethnic origin".

Stuff like this always sounds noble, but more often than not such measures are generally unnecessary and, as in this country, promote a suicidal hatred of a population's own culture and creates more division than it solves as immigrants are let in uncontrolled with no assimilation or integration. We'll see how such socialist policies work out for the Finns.