You have to be kidding me.
TOY giant Lego has reportedly agreed to stop producing a Star Wars toy product Muslims find offensive.
According to Britain’s Independent newspaper, Lego agreed to withdraw the Jabba’s Palace product from production in 2014 to appease those who think it depicts Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, a church-turned-mosque, which is now a museum and one of the city’s top tourist attractions.
Muslim groups also said the watchtower/spire of the toy palace – a Lego version of Hutt Castle, a monastery-turned-palace belonging to crime lord Jabba the Hutt – resembled the minaret of a Beirut mosque.
The Turkish Community Forum, which issued the complaint, also said the Lego version of Jabba himself – a giant slug-like gangster who enslaves Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi – resembled a “terrorist” who “likes to smoke hookah and have his victims killed”.
Complaints about the Lego set were first aired in January when the case came to light when a Turkish man expressed his dissatisfaction with the toy after it was purchased for his son by a family member.
After investigating, Dr Melissa Günes, General Secretary of the Turkish Cultural Community, said that Lego had been contacted with an official complaint.
Initially, Lego responded by saying: “The product is however not based on any real building but on a fictional building from a scene in the movie Star Wars Episode VI”
One of Istanbul’s most magnificent buildings, the Hagia Sophia was dedicated by the Bishop of Antioch in 360, under the reign of the Byzantine emperor Constantine II.
Its served as a Christian cathedral until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
It then became a mosque until the 1930s, when it was turned into a museum under Ataturk, the first president of the modern-day Turkish Republic.
It is famous for its massive dome and is considered the crowning achievement of Byzantine architecture. Some experts say it “changed the history of architecture”.
But why stop there?
Why not withdraw Lego C3PO and R2D2 for combining to look like the Dome of the Rock:
This morning, we brought youallegations that popular toymaker Lego was planning to pull one of its Star Wars sets off shelves. Some critics and outlets claimed that the company folded under pressure from Muslims who viewed the toy as “anti-Islamic” in nature.
But this afternoon, TheBlaze reached a representative who denied theseaccusations and explained that the toy, called “Jabba‘s Palace,” is not in fact being discontinued because of the company’s contention with Muslims.
Lego’s Brand Relations Director Michael McNally responded to questions via email, explaining, from the company’s perspective, how the situation unfolded. Rather than attributing the discontinuation of the toy as having anything to do with the Islamic controversy, he painted a very different picture.
“What is being reported at the moment is false,” McNally told TheBlaze. “As a normal process products in the LEGO Star Wars assortment usually have a life-cycle of one to three years and are not in the portfolio after this time.”
The representative went on to note that “Jabba‘s Palace” was always planned to be sold only until the end of 2013 and that it is “being discontinued as it was originally planned, not for any other reason.” The confusion that has colored the story, McNally claims, comes from a dialogue that Lego had with Austria’s Turkish Cultural Association (TCA).
“We were in dialogue with the Austrian Turkish group to better understand each others points, but the product exit of 9516 LEGO Star Wars Jabba‘s Palace is not a result of this dialogue but a planned portfolio change,” he continued. “It may have been misinterpreted through our dialogue that the item was being pulled for other reasons.”
