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Ich überlege mir fast, mir endlich ein FAZ-Abo zuzulegen. Aus Solidarität. Oder Mitleid.

Triumphzug des Amerikanismus

Das war 1997. Seitdem ist viel passiert. Aber Pizza Hut bleibt.

Leider existiert kein ähnlicher Werbespot aus dem Irak, obwohl auch da vor zwei Jahren eine Filliale eröffnet wurde, in Kurdistan.  "We’re pleased to be able to bring Pizza Hut to Iraq as part of the explosive growth for our brand around the world,” said Scott Bergren, CEO, Pizza Hut and Chief Innovation Officer, Yum! Brands." Pizza Hut in seinem Lauf, hält weder Ochs noch Esel auf...
[Edit: Mir ist erst jetzt aufgefallen, wie witzig die Bezeichnung "explosive growth around the world" in Zusammenhang mit einer Expansion in den Irak eigentlich ist...]

Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, has over 40,000 restaurants in more than 125 countries and territories. Yum! is ranked #201 on the Fortune 500 List with revenues of over $13 billion and in 2013 was named among the top 100 Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine. The Company's restaurant brands - KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - are the global leaders of the chicken, pizza and Mexican-style food categories. Outside the United States, the Yum! Brands system opened over five new restaurants per day, making it a leader in international retail development.

Sehr faszinierend ist auch diese "Brief History of McDonald's in Serbia" (mit einem angemessen gemeinen Lachen über Thomas Friedman am Ende):

The fast food franchise eventually spread beyond Belgrade and throughout Eastern Europe, and soon, having a McDonald’s became a source of national pride. Some of the earliest manifestations of the mounting tensions between Croatia and Serbia before the breakup of Yugoslavia were in the songs Serbs sang about their McDonald’s at football matches. One late-1980s chant went “we have a McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s, we have a McDonald’s, and where is yours?” Another (which rhymed in the language formerly known as Serbo-Croatian) referenced the hometown of Croatian football club Hajduk Split: “Hamburger, cheeseburger, ketchup and fries, we have a McDonald’s and Split doesn’t!” Of course, there were other more inappropriate variations.

Aber dann:

The arrival of the first McDonald’s in Belgrade may have been met with an initial wave of euphoria, but a decade later, an angry mob made their anger with US foreign policy known by torching the fast food restaurant. During the first few days of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, McDonald’s was badly damaged by arsonists. The branch’s owners responded by producing posters and lapel buttons of the golden arches topped with a traditional Serbian cap called the sajkaca. They also converted the lower-level seating area into a bomb shelter.

Less than a decade later, when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, angry mobs again set fire to the historic McDonald’s on Slavija square. Hooligans also attacked the restaurant during the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade.

Tja. Als ich im September in Belgrad war, fand auch gerade wieder die Pride Parade statt - geschützt von einem schweren Polizeiaufgebot.