24 August 2011

BAGHDAD: Everyone here knows that the July 14 bridge marks a 1958 coup when Iraq’s last king was killed. Not many know that King Faisal II lives on in the classic “Tintin” comic books. This includes his own cousin, the man who would be king in the unlikely event that the Iraqi monarchy were restored.

“I have read Tintin since childhood but I never made the connection with King Faisal,” laughed Sharif Ali bin Hussein, amused to learn that Belgian comic writer Herge had modeled one of his characters on his relative.

On the morning of July 14, 1958, King Faisal II, who had just turned 23, was led into the palace courtyard with several family members. All were executed. Hussein, Faisal’s maternal first cousin who is now in his mid-50s, was only about two at the time.

Years before his untimely death, the young king had captured the imagination of the West – as well as Tintin creator Herge – after the tragic death of his father King Ghazi in a 1939 car crash that sent Faisal to the throne at age 3.

From childhood until death, the life of Iraq’s “boy king” was chronicled in photos and articles in big-name U.S. magazines like Time, Life and National Geographic.

Herge quietly drew on the anecdotes to fashion his character Prince Abdullah of the imaginary kingdom of Khemed. The mischievous Arab prince and practical joker both exasperated and charmed boy reporter Tintin and his irascible friend Captain Haddock, first in the “Land of Black Gold” (1950) and later in “The Red Sea Sharks” (1958).

“What I know from family anecdotes is that he used to love practical jokes, which is an indication of his sense of humor and sense of fun,” said Hussein at his villa on the Tigris river.

“Touch not the son of my master,” he chuckled, quoting from memory Captain Haddock when he grabs Abdullah in anger at his antics and is warned off by the boy’s Arab guardian.

The real life Faisal’s mother Queen Aliya or his English governess Dora Borland at times escorted the “boy king,” who was often photographed holding the hand of his uncle, Prince Abdulillah, who was regent until the king came of age in 1953.

Faisal II was a regular in Life magazine, which ran a 1942 photo essay showing the 7-year-old king first in shorts on an oversized throne, then on the palace grounds with his dog.

Three years later – when Iraq was under British occupation – the boy is surrounded on his 10th birthday by presents from British troops: a big toy yacht, a field kitchen and a tent. And in 1946, Life captured the 11-year-old in suit and tie in the French capital. “Iraq’s boy king licks a lollipop while seeing Paris,” read the photo caption.

It was a 1941 National Geographic story on Iraq with a picture of the “boy king,” then 6, that inspired Herge, according to a Danish expert.

“That picture was traced by Herge and made to resemble his fictional character, Prince Abdullah, the son of the Emir of Khemed,” said Frank Madsen, 49, a Danish writer and illustrator of children’s books, in an email.

“In the story Herge needed Abdullah to be kidnapped by the villain Dr. Muller, so his hero Tintin could go rescue him,” said Madsen. “Herge wished to surprise his readers, so he made his character Abdullah into a spoiled kid, who did not want Tintin to rescue him at all.”

Tintin’s comics remain virtually unknown to Iraqi teenagers, or even to an older generation.

As Abdullah’s character was modeled after the real-life Iraqi king, since 2003 Iraq has turned into a model of Herge’s imaginary kingdom of Khemed, whose oil riches were coveted by crooked Western oil executives and arms merchants.

Like Khemed, Iraq remains an oil-rich but broken country.

Eight years after the invasion there is still no drinking water, state-supplied electricity comes on for only a few hours a day, corruption runs wide, and security is so tenuous that every day somewhere in the country someone is killed or kidnapped by bombs or gunmen.

“If Tintin were to come to Iraq he would probably recognize many of the same characters he used to know,” said Hussein, the would-be king. “Things really haven’t changed that much.”

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.