More religious stupidity

11

Regular readers here will remember the stupidity of the Church of England when Manchester Cathedral was featured in a video game. They completely over reacted and got on their high horse when it was one of the best things to happen to that building in many years.

This time it is Sony’s turn to completely over react. Tapha Niang is a two-year old piece of music by Grammy award-winning Toumani Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra which is on his MySpace site. British developer Media Molecule used this as part of the sound track of the much anticipated game Little Big Planet. A nice example of gaming spreading culture.

But then someone posted this on the official Sony Playstation forum:

While playing your latest game, “LittleBigPlanet” in the first level of the third world in the game (titled “Swinging Safari”;)), I have noticed something strange in the lyrics of the music track of the level. When I listened carefully, I was surprised to hear some very familiar Arabic words from the Quran…

The words are:

1- In the 18th second: “كل نفس ذائقة الموت” (“kollo nafsin tha’iqatol mawt”, literally: ‘Every soul shall have the taste of death’).

2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: “كل من عليها فان” (“kollo man alaiha fan”, literally: ‘All that is on earth will perish’).

I asked many of my friends online and offline and they heard the exact same thing that I heard easily when I played that part of the track. Certain Arabic hardcore gaming forums are already discussing this, so we decided to take action by emailing you before this spreads to mainstream attention.

Shocking stuff. So Sony withdrew the game worldwide and are revising the sound track for a later re release. A massive over reaction and something they didn’t do for the Church of England. Maybe Osama bin Laden is a bit more frightening than Rowan Williams.

Whatever, a huge proportion of the non Islamic world now thinks that there is excessive sensitivity being shown to Muslims here. Soon all female characters in games will be wearing a burqa.

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11 Comments


  1. It probably has more to do with it being easy to take a song out just before release just to have no hassle.

    For Resisitance, it would be impossible to take out such a vital part of the game like the setting once it’s already released.

    Nice final sentence …very Daily Mail.


  2. Further clarification of the Islamic problem here.
    http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/21/little-big-planet-musician-defends-song-to-mtv/
    Interestingly: ” there is no explicit rule in Islam prohibiting a song like Diabate’s.”
    And: “it is quite normal to play music and be inspired by the words of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace on his Soul) in my country in Mali. You can see this on television all the time.”

    Looks even more like Sony wasted a lot of money with the recall.


  3. I’m just thinking that removing the song with those lyrics other than for religous reasons is better. I mean “Every soul shall have the taste of death” etc. doesn’t really tie-in with the cutesy family orientated vibe that Media molecule are trying to create . . . . . Or does it? LOL.


  5. what the hell’s a ‘moslem’??


  6. wod, try Google, it is a good way of educating yourself.


  7. BC. Did you click the link in that final sentence?


  8. Nope. Sorry. I don’t usually bother because they tend to just link back to here 😛


  9. BC. I put some links back to articles here for two reasons. Firstly because previous articles contain relevant background and the links mean I don’t have to repeat myself. Secondly this blog contains a lot of original content which ends up copied to other places on the web. Often the links stay with the copy and so I get links in and people are able to see the original source.


  10. I’m not complaining about the links (except on occasion when you use your own ref to stress a point sometimes) …it is just that I don’t even notice them now.


  11. Getting your game featured on the six o’clock news is the sort of publicity money can’t buy.

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