Mohammed al-Hathri, educational chief in Saudi Arabia was recently fired after the Star Wars character, Yoda was found in a textbook next to the Saudi King. Usually, Yoda in a textbook would not be a bad thing, but it cost al-Hathri his job after the students noticed this photo shopped image. Education minister, Ahmed al-Eissa has said that the incident was unintended and announced that new versions of the textbook were being printed to fix the Jedi Master error.
The Sun U.K. reports that the image, created by Saudi artist Abdullah Al Shehri depicts late King Faisal, who was a foreign minister, signing the United Nations Charter in 1945 with the green Jedi Master to his right. Shaweesh had said that this was a part of a montage tribute to King Faisal and Yoda. The artist said that he holds both of them in “equally high esteem,” but he has no idea how it ended up in a textbook and that he “did not mean to cause offense to the royal family”.
Shaweesh was showing his appreciation to Hollywood movies and Arab history and combining them, and he says that whoever was in charge of picking images for the textbook should have done a much better job. In Shaweesh’s original art, Darth Vader was also standing behind Lawrence of Arabia and Iraqui King at Paris Peace Convention in 1919.
Though Yoda and Star Wars are popular in Saudi Arabia, Yoda is the same color as the Saudi flag, education ministry had no choice but to fire al-Hathri. Shaweesh shared his love for Yoda and former King by saying, “He was wise and was always strong in his speeches, so I found that Yoda was the closest character to the king.”
The image of Yoda is striking and leads one to wonder how Mohammed al-Hathri let this little green Jedi Master slip into the textbook. It may be an accident, but it could have also been a blatant tribute to one of the greatest Star Wars characters.
