Tintin in Singapore

I went to a talk called "Comics Strips in Belgium - The big success of a small country."

The first reason Willem De Graeve, deputy director the Belgian Comic Strip Center, gave for the success of comic strips in Belgium is Hergé, creator of Tintin. He described how Tintin inspired many young Belgians to choose drawing as a career, and today Belgium has the highest concentration of professional comic artists in the world.

I feel that comics help define culture in Belgium - a country that might otherwise struggle with an identity crisis from being sandwiched by three bigger neighbors who used to colonize it (Netherlands, France, Germany). Belgians speak Dutch (Flemish), French and German. Arguably, the lack of a spoken national language created a visual alternative in comics.

Singapore appears similar in that we have bits and pieces of our culture from China, India, Malaysia and Britain, all (but India) of which used to hold political sway over our country. We struggle with the same language issues - there's English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, none of which are our own. Other than food and Singlish (more on this later), we don't have much we define ourselves by.

Perhaps we Singaporeans can be defined as being mostly very materialistic? It is difficult to imagine a Singaporean parent supporting his/her child's ambition of being a cartoon artist. We lack inspiring role models who have taken more alternative paths to success. Is that because we prefer everything, including success, to happen within the short term?

Growth of culture is tied to media freedom. Contrary to that, the Singapore government views the media as a form of control, and culture as a form of tourist or export revenue.

Culture is inevitably intertwined with politics. Tintin began his career uninterested in politics. Although in Tintin's debut, Hergé spread counter-propaganda against Soviet communism, he was acting as a mouthpiece for a conservative Catholic newspaper. As he progressed in his career, he became more interested in political causes. The Blue Lotus is widely regarded as the turning point, where he infused the story with anti-Imperialist sentiment.

Today, Singapore filmmakers run into the censorship wall frequently. Although sometimes the issue is politics, most of the time it is because films use Singlish. Singlish films gets the worst of both worlds - they would not qualify at the Academy as a foreign language film, but would get cut by Singapore censors. Why? Apparently, 2 hours of Singlish exposure in the cinema is dangerous, considering we get many times that in our everyday lives. I call the Singapore government action against Singlish the disease of autoimmunity.

Perhaps if we belong to an *dirty word alert* elite stratum, we can avoid Singlish, supposedly the language of the heartlanders? You hear Singlish much less in locations like Paragon and Palais Renaissance. Is the current debate on elitism a failure of Singapore's supposed meritocracy?

As it happened, Tintin was read by the upper class in Belgium. There was a corresponding comic, Spirou, popular among blue collar. I don't know if there was a class issue with Tintin.
The speaker today, Willem De Graeve, said that Tintin is a hero, not a superhero, and we can find a bit of him in ourselves.

Do we see everyday leadership in our politicians? Probably no, but I'm glad Wee Shu Min's dad was honest in his opinions. I would rather know of his true leanings than have him pretend he sympathizes. That's the part I like most about some Singapore politicians - I may not agree with them, but at least they're still not smooth enough and let their tails out of their coats now and then.

Towards the end of today's discussion about Belgian comics, a few of us in the audience brought up the idea of fan culture in comics. Since the speaker was a Public Relations man and not an academic, he was not entirely familiar with Henry Jenkin's work. Eventually, a Belgian girl from the Comparative Media Studies explained the ideas to him in Dutch. I actually understood quite a bit of their conversation. Listening to a discussion about fan culture in Dutch was one of those moments when I felt my diverse education paths converge.

Yet I fear. Will "useless" skills like understanding other countries, understanding others unlike us be appreciated in Singapore? Is there only a single path to success in Singapore - agree with what's printed on the ST, support the ban of Feer, keep hushed about condoning the house arrest of Aung Sang Suu Kyi (while trading with the drug lords indirectly).

I'm not talking about the Chee Soon Juan version of being a self-burning martyr. I'm saying that it is hypocritical to hold back alternative views claiming to champion heartlanders who care only about bread and butter issues while telling heartlanders to grab their own bread and butter.