Not the real Haghia Sophia
Never, growing up in the 1970s, did I imagine that Lego would find itself in trouble, or that its designers would end up being accused of blasphemy; it was hard to think of ways those little bricks that could be offensive.
But this week there has been an almighty hoo-ha because some bright (?) spark has finally realised that the creators of Star Wars borrowed heavily on the city of Istanbul/Constantinople for inspiration for the disappointingly sub-standard trilogy of prequels that were based on Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side.
But this week there has been an almighty hoo-ha because some bright (?) spark has finally realised that the creators of Star Wars borrowed heavily on the city of Istanbul/Constantinople for inspiration for the disappointingly sub-standard trilogy of prequels that were based on Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side.
Having obviously missed the films when they came out a decade or so ago (or they'd have noticed then), it came to the attention of a Turkish group in Austria that Lego had made a model of 'Jabba's palace' that looked just like the Haghia Sophia. This was both racist and disrepectful to Islam, they said in a statement that duly went round every news room of every newspaper in the world and into the next day's pages.
The real Haghia Sophia
I could not help feel sorry for poor Lego who were only following what they saw on the film screen and on the mood boards by the movie big-wigs.
But if anyone was being disrespectful, it was those Austrian killjoys for turning on the humble brick maker rather than the behemoth Star Wars franchise that plundered its inspiration straight from the streets of the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Skyfall tried too, by the way, with zero success - but that's another story...)
As for the idea that using the Haghia Sophia 'mosque' was anti-Islamic and racist - well, the accusers should be ashamed of themselves. Although 'Jabba's palace' was a converted into a mosque after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it had been the jewel in the crown of Christendom for more than a thousand years beforehand, one of the most famous and important churches in the Christian world. Those minarets are are of course not original. And in any event they do not appear on Lego model anyway - the tower on the model is not a minaret, but more likely a small brick version of the milion, the post from which all distances in the Byzantine empire were measured.
History lives and breathes and changes depending who is writing it. There is nothing new about expropriating it either. Nevertheless, it was a surreal week when Byzantium, the Ottoman Turks, Islamic agitators, Lego and Star Wars were all mixed up together in a single pot. It felt like being in another film, The Matrix: my childhood and my academic career blending together in a way I'd never expected. That doesn't often happen - unless, of course none of it is real...
But if anyone was being disrespectful, it was those Austrian killjoys for turning on the humble brick maker rather than the behemoth Star Wars franchise that plundered its inspiration straight from the streets of the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Skyfall tried too, by the way, with zero success - but that's another story...)
As for the idea that using the Haghia Sophia 'mosque' was anti-Islamic and racist - well, the accusers should be ashamed of themselves. Although 'Jabba's palace' was a converted into a mosque after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it had been the jewel in the crown of Christendom for more than a thousand years beforehand, one of the most famous and important churches in the Christian world. Those minarets are are of course not original. And in any event they do not appear on Lego model anyway - the tower on the model is not a minaret, but more likely a small brick version of the milion, the post from which all distances in the Byzantine empire were measured.
History lives and breathes and changes depending who is writing it. There is nothing new about expropriating it either. Nevertheless, it was a surreal week when Byzantium, the Ottoman Turks, Islamic agitators, Lego and Star Wars were all mixed up together in a single pot. It felt like being in another film, The Matrix: my childhood and my academic career blending together in a way I'd never expected. That doesn't often happen - unless, of course none of it is real...
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