Burgers, War and Peace
I came across an article that says that the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina is about to get its first McDonald's restaurant on Wednesday. The outlet, to be opened in Sarajevo, will take the troubled city off the list of capitals that do not have a McDonald's restaurant.
Denis McShane, a British Foreign Office minister that claimed in 2002 that Sarajevo and PyongYang are the only two capitals without a McDonald's. That was a lie of course, given that there are many capitals (and countries) without an outlet sporting the Golden Arches outside: inhabitants of Mogadishu, Tehran,Port Moresby, Tirana and dozens of other places can't enjoy a Big Mac (however, if you live in Iraqi Kurdistan, you can get something that's as close as it gets to it).
However, having a McDonald's in your capital is quite a symbol of joining the globalized world. The imminent collapse of real socialism was never visualized best than when the first McDonald's opened in the Soviet Union in 1990. The map of countries that didn't have a McDonald's seemed to divide the world between the free and the oppressed during the Cold War, although now it also includes locations in places like the People's Republic of China. Therefore, nowadays it's more of a divide between those that participate in the global economy and those that don't. With a few exceptions, of course, as I still can't figure out why no Aussies ever thought of opening a McDonald's across the Torres Strait.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that there's an actual theory about it, the Golden Arches theory, proposed by Thomas L. Friedman. It says:
The theory itself is, of course, rubbish. The United States bombed what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia shortly after the book that contained the argument was published. Israel and Lebanon fought a war in 2006, although I did make an argument on Facebook that a McDonald's that doesn't serve cheeseburgers can't be recognized as a legitimate McDonald's (I was then proven wrong).no two countries with a McDonald's franchise had ever gone to war with one another, a version of the democratic peace theory. The argument goes that when a country has reached an economic development where it has a middle class strong enough to support a McDonalds network, it will not be interested in fighting wars anymore.
So, given that theory was tested to be wrong, is there any Golden Arches theory that does make sense?
The answer is yes. My Golden Arches theory.
If there's anything we know about riots in Athens, it is to avoid eating at the McDonald's on Syntagma Sq. on that day. It's very easy to observe that rule, as the restaurant is usually closed as anarchists work their way through it's windows to flame-grill the entire establishment to ashes. The latest incidentwhich saw the outlet destroyed sparked a debate about whether it was undercover police that started the fire or not.
Back in 2008, I wrote that "if you weren't a McDonald's window - or a window with expensive athletic apparel on the inside - you were perfectly safe" in response to the protests in Belgrade after Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. It's funny that two decades before that, Serb nationalists in the shape of Red Star football fans reportedly taunted Croats with signs reading "McDonald's: 400 km away" in Zagreb, ridiculing them for not having their own outlet.
The theory, of course, is that McDonald's restaurants (which may be locally owned under franchise agreements, as is the case in Serbia) are viewed as the cornershop of America in your neighbourhood and whatever that means for you. It could mean that it embodies all you want to be if you are a teenager sipping on your McMenu's Coke, it could also mean that it is a symbol to be torched if you think that all Americans are murderous, imperialist pigs that are out to get you.
In any case, Muscovites in 1990 and Greek anarchists would both agree its a symbol of capitalism. Sarajevo is about to welcome it on Wednesday. The only question that remains to be answered is how long it would take for the network there to expand from the Muslim and Croat Federation towards Republika Srpska, an ethnic divide that may prove too hard for Ronald to cross armed with Big Macs and fries.
We'll see. I'm off to grab myself some Cheeseburgers from the Skopje outlet.
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