Saudi Textbook Shows Yoda at UN Charter Signing

Several officials fired over photo error
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 26, 2017 10:20 AM CDT
Saudi Officials Fired Over Textbook Featuring Yoda
A photo of the textbook page.   (Twitter)

Royally messed up, they did. A senior education official and others in Saudi Arabia have been fired after a government textbook included a photo of King Faisal seated next to Yoda, everyone's favorite Jedi Master from Star Wars. The doctored black-and-white photo showing Yoda on King Faisal's right as he signed the United Nations charter in 1945 was accidentally included in a high school social studies book published by the Saudi Ministry of Education, report Reuters and the Telegraph. Though it isn't clear how it came to be included in the book, the photo had been one of several doctored by Saudi artist Abdullah al-Shehri as part of a 2013 series designed to make Arab history more "fun," reports the New York Times.

Al-Shehri's photos showing Yoda, Darth Vader, and Captain America present for iconic moments in Arab history were previously shown at galleries in the US and Middle East, but al-Shehri never expected to find one in a textbook, which is where his mother spotted the one of King Faisal and Yoda. Saudi Education Minister Ahmed al-Eissa says the textbooks are being replaced with corrected versions and a legal committee has formed "to determine the source of the error and to take appropriate action." According to Reuters, however, al-Eissa has already fired the undersecretary of the Curriculum and Educational Programs Department and others in charge of reviewing textbooks. (This Indian textbook told kids to suffocate cats.)

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