Until a few minutes ago, I only had the foggiest idea of who Brigitte Bardot was, or why I should care.
She’s just been fined for anti-Muslim remarks she made in France. She’d written on her website that Muslims were “destroying our country by imposing their ways.” Bardot, described by the BBC as a “prominent animal rights campaigner,” is said to be, in this instance (she’s been fined several times before for anti-Muslim statements), incensed about “the slaughter of animals for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.”
Two comments here: one, how about all the animal slaughter that non-Muslims living in France support every day with their diets? By focusing so heavily on Muslims, Bardot is showing what her real problem is: she’s an anti-Muslim bigot. And two, way to add to the reputation of animal rights activists as heads-up-their-asses folks who are oblivious to any other form of oppression or injustice but that visited on nonhuman animals by humans. (Intersectionality… it’s a pretty popular concept on this blog lately. Wonder why?)
Vegans of Color 
I am sad about Brigitte Bardot. I was so happy that a former icon was using her powers (I assure you she does have some powers) for good, and then this happened. What a disappointment! Why not just protest animal cruelty and not an entire faith? If she is going to criticize Muslims then she needs to take a long hard look at nearly every other faith on the planet.
very good point…humans in general treat animals like crap…like it’s hypocritical when Australians (i’m an Aussie) criticise Asians and even call them racist names cause of the way they treat cats and dogs. it’s not mush better than the way we treat chickens and other factory farmed animals. and so what that cats and dogs are our pets over here…maybe some Asians consider Cows and Pigs and Sheep and Chickens to be of friendship value (In Indian the cow is holy).
Brigitte Bardot is a sad person who needs to shut her hate speech down. Between her and PETA, this is pretty damn depressing. It kills me to see how some people & organizations claim to care for the rights of animals, yet in doing so, they completely disregard human rights, showcasing their intolerance & bigotry. RRrrr!
Bardot’s organization supports animal rights and is not, as you seem to think, strictly anti-Muslim. You need to look more deeply before you accuse someone of being racist.
Being critical of someone’s action isn’t “hate speech”….if it were then you’d be guilty of hate speech because of your remarks about Brigitte Bardot.
Robert — Wow, way to miss the point, multiple times. Yes, I am aware that Brigitte Bardot does animal rights work that is tinged with racism & anti-Muslim sentiment. And please, if the “hate speech” comment was a prelude to a rant about freedom of speech, then save it before you indicate even more how you don’t get it.
Johanna, if I “miss the point, multiple times” how could anything else I say ” indicate even more how [ I ] don’t get it” ?
I doubt if you know anything about Bardot’s animal rights work. Maybe you should check out her foundation’s web site.
New comment policy: folks who show a total lack of understanding of race & racism, & a total lack of interest in rectifying this? Will no longer be engaged. Ta ta.
Just one comment – the reason Bardot is focusing Muslims as opposed to non-Muslims is not because she’s a bigot – though she may be – but rather because because in France it is required by law that animals are stunned before being slaughtered – legislation which she herself fought hard to have enacted – and that law is being ignored by Muslims celebrating Eid.
Chris — thanks for that comment. It would be interesting to find out how old that legislation is, who stunned their animals before that legislation was enacted, & who else besides Muslims ignores the legislation now. That would also give more insight into Bardot’s comments, which still to me seem to be phrased in an inflammatory manner (“destroying our country by imposing their ways”? That is classic anti-immigrant rhetoric right there — & whose country is she talking about? Is France only for non-Muslims now?).
Yes, I agree with that for the most part. One other point – Ms. Bardot’s rhetoric tends to be inflammatory no matter who her target is. She has what my Irish relatives call a “barbed wire tongue”, and she seems to save the worst of it for the politicians themselves, who she has referred to as “imbeciles of the worst kind”, stating and that “if the animal world had been struck by the same virus of incompetence as Villepin’s ministers, there would have to be a mass cull”. One thing she’ll never be accused of is being tactful.
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It is sad that these kind of racist figures are seen as animal rights campaigners. They only hurt the movement and more so do exactly the opposite of what animal rights stands for.
Human rights is just as important as animal rights. If you can’t respect the first you will never really respect the second.
“Human rights is just as important as animal rights. If you can’t respect the first you will never really respect the second.” And vice versa.
Islam is a religious ideology not a “race”. There is nothing “racist” about criticising Islam or those who practice that ideology. If it is “racist” and “bigoted” in your eyes – or those of the BBC – to criticise the barbarity of Halal slaughter, then it must be similarly “racist” to criticise the gangs of Muslim men who have raped under-aged girls in Rochdale, Oxford and elsewhere. How do you feel about them Johanna, or do you prefer not to know and turn a blind-eye like the authorities did for so long? Good for Bardot, it is about time someone stood up to Islam.
You might all be interested in learning that the Bridget Bardot situation has reared it’s ugly head in animal rights yet again. In the Uk we are doing our best to kick any sort of ‘ism’ out of our movement and have adopted an ’emblem’ which organisations can sign up to, which states discrimination of any sort will not be tolerated. It seems to me that BB supports a lot of grass roots organisations in France financially and so they are turning a blind eye to the more unpleasant aspects of her nature. Human rights and animal rights are inextricably linked. Non human animals do not stand a chance if we can not respect and support human rights. Until all are free.
As an ordinary English bloke who has been vegan for 25 years I am fed up of the intolerant PC brigade hijacking the vegan ethos for their own ends. Add in the rapes of dozens of under-age girls in Rotherham, to which the so-called liberals turned a blind eye, female genital mutilation (ditto), the Halal slaughter of Lee Rigby, the murders of British and American hostages in Syria by Muslims, the ‘Trojan Horse’ plot for the Islamic takeover of state schools in Birmingham and you can see that here in England we need someone of Bardot’s stature who is willing to speak out. Yes, human rights and animal rights are inextricably linked and the liberal appeasers of Islam are as bad as the conservative appeasers of fascism were in the 1930’s.