(This is the ninth article in a 10-part series looking at textbook-related issues facing schools, teachers, administrators, parents and students around the world. This item covers the used of comic books in Europe to get a government message across.)
BRUSSELS, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- They take their comic strips seriously in Belgium.
The country that gave the world Tintin, Lucky Luke and the Smurfs has a comic strip museum in Brussels, dozens of dedicated cartoon shops dotted across the country and giant frescoes of animated characters daubed on disused buildings in the capital.
So it is little wonder that the European Union, which has its headquarters in Brussels, should turn to comic strips to ram home its message of peace, love and reduced tariffs for non-agricultural products.
The 15-member bloc has little control over what is taught in classrooms and its attempts at nudging European countries toward drawing up common textbooks have met with stiff resistance. However, the European Commission -- the EU's powerful executive arm -- has a $100-million-a-year information budget, part of which it is only too happy to spend churning out glossy comic books for youngsters.
The most famous, or rather infamous, of these is "The Raspberry Ice Cream War -- a Comic for Young People on a Peaceful Europe Without Frontiers."
This snappily titled 1998 publication tells the story of Christine (who has "already made lots of friends all over Europe"), Max (who wears a baseball cap with the EU flag) and Paul (who wants to study languages and travel to as many countries as possible -- "first of all, of course, right across Europe.")
Our three young heroes are busy surfing the Internet one day when they get sucked into the computer and dumped in a land of borders, passports and levies.
"We must have gone back in time or something," says Christine.
Max: "Yes, it looks like it, doesn't it? Do you remember the history lesson last week?"
Paul: "Yes, Europe in the dark ages. Frontiers and barriers everywhere and people fighting wars for the stupidest reasons. That's exactly what it looks like here. Kind of weird."
The kids are arrested for refusing to pay a border levy and are hauled before the king -- who suspects them of trying to steal the recipe for raspberry ice cream. Our enlightened trio explain what life is like in the EU paradise they hail from.
"There are no borders anymore and the governments put their heads together to decide what's best for everyone ...you can go anywhere you want, work, study, buy things, go on holiday," Christine helpfully explains.
The king is convinced ("No wars. That's good. To tell the truth I can't stand wars,") and decides to throw a banquet for the tots in which he ends up drinking a toast to Europe.
The comic strip caused a furor in Britain -- where only a handful of the 75,000 copies shipped over to the commission's London office were ever distributed.
Even the pro-European Labor government agreed that "this was undoubtedly an ill-judged and, in part, factually inaccurate publication."
A similar stink was caused by the publication of a European Parliament cartoon book entitled "Troubled Waters."
The 40-page comic book, which hit EU information offices across the continent last year, is about a glamorous female member of Parliament who unearths an attempt by a crooked company to poison Europe's water.
It provides an interesting insight into the lives of Euro-parliamentarians ("I seem to spend my whole life on the train between Brussels and Strasbourg ... but I'd hate to have to choose between mussels and chips and Strasbourg onion tart," says svelte heroine Irina Vega.)
However, the comic, which has been translated into 22 languages at a cost of almost $1.5 million, failed to amuse British Conservative deputies to the European Parliament.
"It seems that the European Parliament has found its natural level with the publication of this comic book, stuffed full of self-congratulatory claptrap and Euro-propaganda" said Roger Helmer, adding: "Civil servants in the Parliament have clearly failed in their duty of political neutrality."
Defenders of the glossy cartoon book, which won a French comic strip prize, say that Helmer and company should lighten up.
Alison Suttie, spokeswoman for European Parliament President Pat Cox, told United Press International: "You can call it propaganda if you like, but it is a fun way of explaining complex issues."
Cox, a jovial former TV presenter from Ireland, has even appeared in a Roger Rabbit-like film for 4- to 7-year-olds in which a cow called Europa interviews the Parliament speaker about EU issues.
"Give me a child until he is 7 and I will give you the man," say the Jesuits. The commission takes a similar approach, believing that young people are ideal transmitters of the EU message.
A 1998 commission-endorsed paper on how to educate youngsters about the euro stated: "The education system -- and teachers in particular -- will have a major role to play in forming and communicating with young people. Young people will often in practice act as go-betweens with the older generations, helping to familiarize them with and embrace the euro."
To sell the fledgling currency to a skeptical audience, the commission introduced a superhuman cartoon figure called Captain Euro, who -- with the aid of his attractive blonde assistant Europa and dog Lupo -- triumphs against the evil Dr. D. Vider.
Europa is also the name of the heroine in a comic book published by the Greek presidency of the EU in the first half of 2003. "A Swallow over Europe" is the story of a blonde-haired schoolgirl who shows the fork-tailed bird how to build a truly European nest for its offspring by taking a twig or petal from each the national flower or tree of each European country.
Having picked up a strip of birch bark from Finland, a tuft of pine needles from Portugal, a yellow daffodil from Wales, etc., the swallow builds its nest in the European Parliament headquarters in Brussels.
"And in this building here, where you have built your fine new nest, the heart of Europe beats and it shall go on beating," says Europa before floating back to Greece on a cloud.
It is difficult to object to the messages these EU-sponsored comic books attempt to spread. In "Let Me Tell You a Secret About the Environment" an eco-warrior fox living on a rubbish dump paints a bleak picture of environmental degradation to a lost young lad.
In "What? Me? A Racist?" (a "humorously written and informative pamphlet designed for teachers to use when addressing the subject of racism with young people," according to the back-page blurb) interesting questions about race, stereotyping and prejudices are raised.
The problem in all the picture books, and in much of the European Union's attempts at connecting with the public, is the EU confuses information with propaganda.
In "Let Me Tell You a Secret About the Environment," the fox explains: "We are poisoning the earth, the air and the water."
"You mean to say, sir, that we are killing ourselves?" asks Tom beside a picture of a dead rat floating belly-up down a green effluent stream.
"Yes," replies the fox. "If we don't do anything, that's what might happen. But it's not too late. We ALL need to change our habits."
Like many of the scenes in the "Raspberry Ice Cream War," this verges on preachy propaganda. Children don't notice this of course, which makes it all the more effective, and all the more insidious.
--
(Next: Online suppliers become a must-stop location for college students looking for texts.)
