The constant gardener
Jose Bové
Marlo Edwards,
McMaster University
Jose Bové is the charismatic, seemingly irrepressible French farmer, staunch unionist, and antiglobalization
activist who achieved worldwide notoriety after sabotaging a McDonald's restaurant in the French town of Millau in
1999. While Bové's actions, for which he was imprisoned for forty-four days, were meant to express his disgust with
malbouffe (bad food) they also served as a powerful indictment of hegemonic American culture and the
industrialization of global agriculture. Bové's enduring political allure is a result of his dynamic blending
of "everyman" sensibilities and radical, even militant, dissent. Critics of Bové have suggested that his
farmer-mystique is spurious, and have noted that Bové spends much more time travelling and protesting
genetically modified crops and hormone-fed livestock than he does tilling his own fields. Indeed, Bové's
background is emphatically political: after being expelled from secondary school and skipping university, he
eventually joined a group of conscientious objectors. Then, in 1987, he helped to form the
Confédération Paysanne, an ethically and ecologically concerned agricultural union that represents the
interests of small-scale farmers. Bové continues to act aggressively against all facets of corporate-led
globalization. He has been active with Greenpeace (especially on their anti-nuclear campaigns) and is an
instrumental protester at the World Trade meetings. His book, The World is Not for Sale
(2001), co-written with fellow farmer François Dufour, is a rallying cry for farmers, the general population,
and ecologists to form an active alliance in favour of local, ethical, and sustainable cultural practices.
Bové's fame is an example of the possibilities of the global justice movement, which, via virtual linkages,
is able to more widely and rapidly disseminate alternative views and strategies of globalization than was possible
in the past.
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| Jose Bové |
(Photo: Free Use Image, Wikipedia)