France is a democracy, you see
The French don't believe in free speech. Insulting a public official in France is a punishable criminal offense. "Inappropriate" religious dress or jewelry can get a kid sent home from school, much as a racist slogan on a tee-shirt might here. And Brigette Bardot has been fined for expressing her beliefs honestly in her book, A Scream in the Silence.
What outrageous things did Bardot write? "Mme. Bardot," the judge ruled, "presents Muslims as barbaric and cruel invaders, responsible for terrorist acts and eager to dominate the French to the extent of wanting to exterminate them.”
Muslims responsible for terrorist acts? Jihadis wanting to dominate and exterminate the infidels? Can you imagine? Barbaric and cruel invaders? How could anybody ever think that Islam might be the motive for seeking to overwhelm other countries, and convert their populations bu cultural domination or even by force? Why, you'd think that Muslims cut the heads off kidnapped Western journalists and businessmen with knives and then sent the media videos of the murders, or something!
Bardot says many things about homosexuals and Muslims and others that are admittedly over the top, and even reprehensible. Her attitude toward interracial marriage is just plain stupid. Don't get me wrong; I'm not defending everything she says in the book. But it's rather a sore point in France and in much of Europe that the Islamic population is growing at a rate which really does threaten the roots of Western culture. Of course not all Muslims are responsible for the crimes of terrorists and jihadis, past or present. But however great Islamic a civilization may have been in the past, the negatives Ms. Bardot attributes to it are quite reasonable sources of anxiety today in a nation which may, in fact, be turned into an Islamic country in the lifetime of people who are alive at this moment. Would you feel comfortable with the prospect of your children or grandchildren living as a Christian or even a secularist in a Muslim nation?
The issue isn't whether or not one agrees with Ms. Bardot's book, or even whether one sees it as reasonable discourse. The bottom line- which we, in this country, are also in danger of forgetting- is that free countries don't fine or imprison people for expressing their ideas, however hateful they may be.
This is yet one more example of how little the United States and France really share in the very realm of democratic ideals to which the dwindling company of American Francophiles so often point.
What outrageous things did Bardot write? "Mme. Bardot," the judge ruled, "presents Muslims as barbaric and cruel invaders, responsible for terrorist acts and eager to dominate the French to the extent of wanting to exterminate them.”
Muslims responsible for terrorist acts? Jihadis wanting to dominate and exterminate the infidels? Can you imagine? Barbaric and cruel invaders? How could anybody ever think that Islam might be the motive for seeking to overwhelm other countries, and convert their populations bu cultural domination or even by force? Why, you'd think that Muslims cut the heads off kidnapped Western journalists and businessmen with knives and then sent the media videos of the murders, or something!
Bardot says many things about homosexuals and Muslims and others that are admittedly over the top, and even reprehensible. Her attitude toward interracial marriage is just plain stupid. Don't get me wrong; I'm not defending everything she says in the book. But it's rather a sore point in France and in much of Europe that the Islamic population is growing at a rate which really does threaten the roots of Western culture. Of course not all Muslims are responsible for the crimes of terrorists and jihadis, past or present. But however great Islamic a civilization may have been in the past, the negatives Ms. Bardot attributes to it are quite reasonable sources of anxiety today in a nation which may, in fact, be turned into an Islamic country in the lifetime of people who are alive at this moment. Would you feel comfortable with the prospect of your children or grandchildren living as a Christian or even a secularist in a Muslim nation?
The issue isn't whether or not one agrees with Ms. Bardot's book, or even whether one sees it as reasonable discourse. The bottom line- which we, in this country, are also in danger of forgetting- is that free countries don't fine or imprison people for expressing their ideas, however hateful they may be.
This is yet one more example of how little the United States and France really share in the very realm of democratic ideals to which the dwindling company of American Francophiles so often point.
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