Apple defends new iPhone game, Angry Kurds
Apple have come out in defence of Angry Kurds; the long-awaited follow-up to Rovio Mobileâs iPhone sensation Angry Birds. Â Recently appointed Apple CEO, Tim Cook, described the game as ââ¦a cheerful trivialisation of well-known ethnic conflicts over the establishment of a separate Kurdish nation, only with more splats and catapults.â Tuomo Lehtine, the gameâs senior programmer, is confident the new title tackles, quite literally âhead-onâ, criticisms that the original Angry Birds was âvacuousâ and âwithout intellectual meritâ.Â âAngry Kurds deftly weaves the dense political narrative of the Kurdish irredentist movement through 80 fun-filled and colourful levels in which players get to fire funny little fez and turban-wearing men with big eyebrows at rickety wooden constructions, symbolic of Kurdish oppression.â This has not, however, impressed MIT professor and political activist, Noam Chomsky, who has emerged as one of the gameâs staunchest detractors. âTo shamelessly profiteer from the Kurdish peopleâs ongoing plight as they struggle for self-determination is yet another example of state-capitalismâs systemic tendency to instil a utilitarian philosophy of doctrinal compliance within the working classes.â He added, âAdam Smith would be turning in his grave. Especially if he ever got to level 63, which is an absolute fucking nightmare.â Regardless of the controversy, Appleâs boss has said the company has no plans to withdraw the game. âLook, I know some people are upset, but if we remove the game now, weâll have a lot of angry nerds to deal with, and theyâre our principal customers.â Tuomo Lehtine, meanwhile, had some defiant closing words of his own. âOk, I know the hats may not be ethnically accurate, but everyone knows thereâs probably someone in that region who wears a fez or a turban or whatever and, come on, they do look pretty funny. At any rate, in Angry Birds we had pigs wearing cowboy hats and no one took offence at thatâ¦ well, apart the Jewish, anti-American Mr Chomsky.â Angry Kurds is out now on iPhone and due to be released on Android in March 2012 in time for the Arab spring.