Author: Tomi Soetjipto
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: October 13, 2001
Introduction: Big Mac dons Muslim
Garb to escape mob fury
Step inside a McDonald's restaurant
in Indonesia's capital, scene of daily anti-American protests over US-led
strikes on Afghanistan, and the first thing you see is not a Big Mac but
a large Islamic poster.
McDonald's crew still scurry about
- but the women wear elegant Muslim clothing with matching veils while
men sport prayer caps.
'In the name of Allah, the merciful
and the gracious, McDonald's Indonesia is owned by an indigenous Muslim
Indonesian,' says the poster, painted the Islamic colour of green and which
also dots other outlets in Jakarta.
Some of the posters are inscribed
in Arabic, part of an apparent bid by franchise holder Bambang Rachmadi
to project an image that the icon of American fast food is an Islamic-friendly
business in a country where many US companies are lying low.
A KFC outlet in the country's east
has already been the target of a homemade bomb, while in central Java some
protesters have plastered signs on McDonald's outlets symbolically 'sealing'
them. They have remained open.
'Recently some people actually came
up to us asking whether McDonald's was owned by white Americans,' said
Wiwiek, a manager of an outlet near a bustling market in central Jakarta.
The questioners did not identify themselves as Islamic radicals.
"We told them McDonald's Indonesia
was owned by an Indonesian Muslim. But not many people know that, so we
put up the posters," she added. - Reuters
