McDonald’s, the very symbol of globalisation, is used to having its windows broken during violent protests at World Trade Organisation (WTO) summits, but not in Hong Kong where one group met for breakfast on Thursday.
Eight demonstrators ignored the anti-globalisation message of their “Junk WTO” baseball caps and feasted on Sausage McMuffins as they planned how to get across their anti-capitalist message.
One protester attending the Hong Kong talks and on whom the irony might be lost was French militant farmer Jose Bove, who spent three months in jail after he helped demolish a partly built McDonald’s outlet in southern France in 1999.
Bove would no doubt be unimpressed by the lack of resolve displayed by his fellow protesters, but then again, as the fast-food giant’s slogan goes, “There’s a little McDonald’s in everyone”. — AFP