"I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and the grass looked as if it had been left out all night."

Spam comments duly deleted. I have so far resisted application of word recognition software as I find it tiresome, and steadfastly refuse to recognise "tfdgxx" as a word, else it shall claim sovereignty next. I'll hold off until/unless it becomes absolutely necessary, upon the explosion of traffic when the world realises my talent. I do sometimes worry that my writing style is frozen at 16 years of age and, while mindful of the need to first imitate a style on the way to stumbling over one's own, I sometimes doubt the wisdom of electing Saki to such a post.

But that's not what I came to write about.
This news story
is old news now, but in my defense, there is a timelag on news reaching me here. I'm not qualified to comment really, as I've not read the book, but I have a suspicion that puts me on a par, in one aspect at least, with the spokeswoman for The Commission for Racial Equality.
I shall elucidate.
To summarise, the Co mission for Racial Equality (CRE) have complained that "Tintin in The Congo" is racist and should be removed from sale. Racist material in children's books is a topic fraught with exposed nerves and bruised opinions, in short, a touchy subject. Borders, the chain cited for peddling the book to minors, have moved it to the adult section, where presumably it will join "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" from the same era.
The CRE response is quoted directly from the bbc news website below.

The CRE spokeswoman said: "How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?"

"The only place that it might be acceptable for this to be displayed would be in a museum, with a big sign saying 'old-fashioned, racist claptrap.'

"It's high time that they reconsidered their decision and removed this from their shelves," she added.

Comment on this seems almost superfluous, so I shall edge around it.

A common response seems to be 'it has been on sale since 1931, what does it matter?' While it is true that the CRE have not been quick off the mark, this has no bearing on the matter - The penultimate surviving ship from the Battle of Trafalgar was scuttled in 1947, an action which would surely never come to pass now. You may be thinking this has nothing to do with Tintin or racism, and you would be right in that belief; I wanted an example that didn't use attitudes towards race as they remain, as the spokeswoman's outburst proves, a difficult subject. What is important is coming to terms with one's own cultural past, not hide it in museums with opinionated and inflammatory signs. It is also important to choose your targets well. Banning a Tintin book when the complete works of The Marquis de Sade and 'Mein Kampf" remain in print is perverse.

The museum idea is interesting, as the contents of my favourite museums, The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, come principally (and I did have to look this up) from the collection of Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, an old colonial whose views on race would probably send the CRE into apoplexy. Gosh, I do enjoy that word.