Discover Benelux  |  Feature  |  Tintin and the European narrative

Tintin and the European narrative TEXT: NILS ELMARK  |  PHOTO: MACHIAVEL, DREAMSTIME.COM

We need a new European narrative that will lead us into a modern global future and the arch-European Tintin from Brussels has already told us how to do it. Tintin set foot on the moon the year I was born, although I did not realise it until eight years later when I read Destination Moon in the children’s section of our local Sun68  |  Issue 49  |  January 2018

day newspaper. This changed my view on life forever. Every week, I followed my hero and became absorbed in his universe. I was with Tintin on the moon long before Neil Armstrong got there, I climbed the mountains of Tibet, and followed Tintin all the way to Peru and the Temple of The Sun. Before I was 12 I had learnt many things from Tintin. But most of all,

I learned that the world is exciting and nothing to be afraid of. Psychologists claim that when we are 1415 years old we have developed a set of values which we will hold on to for the rest of our lives. We all need a narrative that fences our lives in and helps to describe our identity through examples, actions and stories. It is from our narrative we