Confusions in the environmental camp: on Brigitte Bardot

The Sea Shepherd movement’s ship – the ‘Brigitte Bardot’ – has been damaged and is being escorted to port. I hope it makes it safely.

The name is interesting. Ms Bardot is an icon in France. Her face is now that of Marianne. Her acting career covered the post-war French film renaissance. In some ways – but in a more pneumatic manner – her presence in France is similar to that of the sublime Catherine Deneuve. She is a staunch environmentalist and animal rights advocate, which presumably explains the ship’s name..

She is also a racist, prosecuted on multiple occasions for inciting racial hatred. She has a particular hatred of Islam and what is sometimes called the ‘islamisation’ of France. As such. she echoes the politics of the neo-fascist National Front, and has praised

its leader in the past. Her views on gays are also highly questionable, and she’s been prosecuted

for anti-gay views.

She is a classic case of the problem of ‘issue-based’ politics, in which we isolate one set of views from another, and seize on the admirable, whilst turning our cheek to the deeply unpleasant. No responsible political movement could us Ms Bardot’s name in the way Sea Shepherd does. I’m reminded of Hitler’s love of animals and vegetarianism, and cannot imagine animal rights or vegetarian movements using his name positively. Ms Bardot is not a Hitler, of course, but her other political views are deeply distasteful, and the use of her name by Sea Shepherd is remarkably one-eyed.