Lego: The Muslim Empire Strikes Back

If you want proof that religion and child-like make-belief are indistinguishable, have I got a story for you. No, it’s not an April Fool’s joke. From the U.K. Independent:

Austria’s Turkish community claimed a victory in its fight against Danish toy giant Lego yesterday after the firm agreed to withdraw a Star Wars toy set featuring a mosque-like building inhabited by an obese, hookah–smoking alien, following complaints that it was anti-Muslim.

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Lego added the “Jabba’s Palace” playset to its Star Wars collection in 2012. But in January this year the set started to provoke outrage in Austria’s Islamic community after a Muslim father found that his sister had given one to his son as a present.

Outrage, as you’ve probably noticed, is Islamic believers’ perennial state. If Muslim countries ever run out of oil, I’m sure their citizens can learn to fuel their cars just by tapping into that always-boiling subdural fury they carry with them.

The Lego game, which is aimed at children aged from nine to 14, features Jabba the Hutt in his intergalactic lair. Jabba, the slug-like villain who first appeared in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, lives in a domed, oriental-looking building equipped with rockets and machine guns. He also smokes a water pipe and keeps Princess Leia in chains for use as his personal slave.

Furious Muslim critics complained that the Lego set’s Asian and oriental figures were “deceitful and criminal” characters such as gun-runners, slave masters and terrorists.

Oh, also,

Critics claimed that the palace had an uncanny resemblance to Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia mosque.

Well, so what? Catholics had an unpleasant slug living in their big fancy God-palace for years, and you didn’t hear them complain about it.