The 33 Chilean Miners, Trapped Underground For The Past Two Months Are Now Finally Free… or so the world media would have us believe!
The rescue operation in the northern Chilean town of Copiapo has succeeded in bringing the 33 trapped miners to the surface, releasing them from their involuntary entombment BUT NOT freeing them from their entrapment!
The horrific news of the 5 August cave in and the suspected loss of many lives, followed by the elated discovery on 22 August that all are alive and well, captured the hearts and minds of a global audience.
Today’s rescue and ‘freedom’ should signal the closing chapter to their entrapment BUT THE REALITY is quite different!
The local mining company Compania Minera San Esteban Primera has been under the spotlight for the past two months and has incurred significant financial and labour cost due to this accident. They will be wanting to recoup their losses and the 33 miners represent their best chance at doing that. ’33 Happy miners’ means a happy and placated workforce, which equates to lower labour costs and greater profits – so the mine will be eager to CONTROL the newly released miners for the next few weeks until the media furore dies down.
The politicians will be wanting their ‘pound of flesh’ from the 33 miners, ever since the head of the national mining regulator Sernageomin, was unceremoniously sacked by the country’s President in the wake of the accident. This means only one thing, getting the 33 miners to corroborate on a story that helps some politicians cause (but not the miners necessarily). And we all know how long things take in politics… months, if not years. So no ‘freedom’ there any time soon.
Unwittingly the miners now have gained a celebrity status, partly due to their own doing in the way that they handled their situation over the past two months and partly due to their family and loved ones maintaining a constant vigil at the mines entrance. A kind of ‘Big Brother reality TV show‘. This new found celebrity status makes them public property and open to daily harassment by complete strangers and under constant scrutiny of others. Their anonymity is gone forever, they are no longer free to do and say as they please without some form of retribution.
But lastly and by no means the least, the men have endured serious emotional and mental hardship, the ramifications of which we cannot begin to imagine. When all the dust has settled and the cameras have gone, the politicians have found other sacrificial lambs and the mine has other woes, the men will be left with their thoughts and memories. Without proper psychological support enabling the men to manage these concious streams, the 33 miners will forever be trapped in a ‘two month ordeal’ without escape.
So, are these 33 miners free as the media would like us to believe, or have they just been physically moved out of the way? You decide.
Tags: miners, politicians
Can’t help but notice, 9 months on and the miners are beginning to look REALLY trapped now!
Some have turned to alcohol and cocaine for their escape, others have turned to fame and ‘fortune’ but in reality all of them have in fact become prisoners of yet bigger vices with harder realities. A little bit of ‘out of the fat and into the fire’
Only time will tell…