The Tintin/ebola connection that makes for a strange tale

While describing the time he headed to Africa to research a then-mysterious, deadly virus, he also mentioned a fascinating nugget of info: “When the Belgian government decided to send someone, I volunteered immediately. I was 27 and felt a bit like my childhood hero, Tintin.” But there was also another interesting angle, as Piot disclosed […]

While describing the time he headed to Africa to research a then-mysterious, deadly virus, he also mentioned a fascinating nugget of info: “When the Belgian government decided to send someone, I volunteered immediately. I was 27 and felt a bit like my childhood hero, Tintin.”
But there was also another interesting angle, as Piot disclosed that the nuns who contracted the disease and who had died were from Belgium and at Yambuku, part of the Belgian Congo. Which suggests he must’ve been reading ‘Tintin in the Congo’, an early book in the series and one that would later spark controversy for portraying racism, as creator Hergé has long been accused of.
The book even infamously spawned a 2012 court case, during which a Belgian court ruled that the 1946 edition of the book did not break anti-hate laws, chalking it up to “the attitudes of the day and not a deliberate attempt to incite racism”. Congolese campaigner Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo had been for years seeking a ban on the book as he believed the portrayal of Africans was “a justification of white supremacy”.