![\"lego-star-wars-jabbas-palace\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/lego-star-wars-jabbas-palace.jpg\")
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In January we asked \u201cIs this LEGO Star Wars toy racist?\u201d in reference to LEGO\u2019s blocky rendition of Jabba the Hutt\u2019s desert palace, as depicted at the beginning of the film Return of the Jedi.<\/p>\n
The Turkish Cultural Community of Austria recently caused a stir by claiming the toy\u2019s design was racially motivated, arguing that it was based on the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the\u00a0Jami\u2019 al-Kabir\u00a0mosque in Beirut. Also: that the figures found in the set exemplify \u201cracial prejudice and vulgar insinuations against \u2026 Orientals and Asians as sneaky and criminal personalities (slaveholders, leaders of criminal organizations, terrorists, criminals, murderers, human sacrifice)\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems the toy\u2019s demise is now at hand: LEGO says it plans to retire Jabba\u2019s Palace, leading some to conclude the company\u2019s caving to backlash.\u00a0Not so, says LEGO in an Apr. 2 statement:<\/p>\n
A few media have reported that the product is being discontinued due to the mentioned criticism. This is, however, not correct \u2026\u00a0As a normal process products in the LEGO Star Wars assortment usually have a life-cycle of one to three years after which they leave the assortment and may be renewed after some years. The LEGO Star Wars product Jabba\u2019s Palace 9516 was planned from the beginning to be in the assortment only until the end of 2013 as new exciting models from the Star Wars universe will follow.<\/p>\n
Still, the TCCA seems to be greeting the move with celebratory rhetoric: \u201cWe are very grateful and congratulate Lego on the decision to take Jabba\u2019s Palace out of production,\u201d said TCCA president Birol Killic (via RT).<\/p>\n
Despite LEGO\u2019s denial that the toy\u2019s removal is backlash-related, it devotes most of its statement to defending the toy as creatively anodyne, noting that it \u201cregrets that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to interpret [the toy] wrongly, but \u2026 the design of the product only refers to the fictional content of the Star Wars saga.\u201d<\/p>\n
via LEGO: We\u2019re Scrapping Star Wars Toy, But Not Because of Muslim Backlash | TIME.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Turkish Forum Dan\u0131\u015fma Kurulu \u00dcyesi Birol K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7’\u0131n giri\u015fimleri ile \u0131rk\u00e7\u0131 \u00f6\u011feler i\u00e7erdi\u011fi ve Ayasofya’ya benzedi\u011fi i\u00e7in \u015fikayet edilen \u00fcr\u00fcn\u00fc, Lego art\u0131k \u00fcretmeme karar\u0131 ald\u0131. In January we asked \u201cIs this LEGO Star Wars toy racist?\u201d in reference to LEGO\u2019s blocky rendition of Jabba the Hutt\u2019s desert palace, as depicted at the beginning of the film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":69085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[8722,550],"class_list":["post-69084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-lego","tag-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}