The Silencing of Brigitte Bardot

If you scroll down, you'll see that I made mention of Brigitte Bardot last week, and how her portrait sold for almost two hundred grand.

The French bombshell (well, used to be) is back in the news, this time for inciting racial hatred. She now faces a fine of around 22 grand and a two month suspended sentence. If that sounds like harsh treatment for the French lady speaking her mind, it's because the lead prosecutor is asking for the most "striking and remarkable" punishment possible.

How the times have changed. Throughout Brigitte's entire career, the words "striking and remarkable" were thrown at her in breathless whispers. Now those same words are being used to punish her for writing a letter.

How's that, you say? A letter?

Ah, yes. The story goes like this: Brigitte Bardot is an animal rights activist. Always has been (just ask the people in Newfoundland). But of late she's become the champion of French traditionalism, saying that immigration is out of hand and that Islam is growing bigger than the church. Being an animal rights activist, she's also concerned that Islamic people might be slaughtering sheep during the festival of Eid-al-Kabir.

She's been convicted four times for inciting racial hatred. Once for talking about "foreign over-population," and another time for writing, "...my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims." This line appeared in her book, Pluto's Square.

Come again, you ask, a book?

Well, two actually. In another book, Bardot wrote about what she saw as the "Islamification of France" and said that more mosques are being built all the time, while the church bells are falling silent for want of priests. This prose got her busted again for inciting racial hatred (Islam and Catholicism apparently falling under the "race" banner now, as opposed to being what they are: religions).

I don't know about you, but to me "inciting racial hatred" implies someone standing on a corner and shouting racial epithets at the top of their lungs, or gathering people together and telling them to go out and beat people up because of their skin color. But lamenting in books and letters that church bells are falling silent, or talking about over-population? I thought over-population was the talk of the town. Hell, even Ted Turner thinks it's the biggest problem on the horizon.

Bardot's latest letter, by the way, was written to President Sarkozy back when he was the Interior Minister of France. Then it was leaked to the media, and Bardot was charged. So the way it goes in France, you can be tried and convicted for private correspondence. If Canadians thought they had it bad for being brought up on internet chatroom raps, that's nothing: if you write a rant to a friend in France, and that bon ami drops it off at the newspaper or prosecutor's office, you could be whistling to the tune of 22 thousand dollars.

A question: if letters and books get you arrested for talking about anything to do with immigration and religion, how long is it until nobody writes about those subjects anymore?

Oh, wait. Silly me. That's the point.

Photo: TLT News