Can I Really Be Upset About The Chilean Mine Rescue?

I’m not looking to start some sort of riot, but I’m a little torqued off about the hubbub surrounding the rescue of those Chilean miners.  Before you light your torch and grab your pitchfork, let me clarify my position: I couldn’t be happier about the rescue itself, and I have undying respect for the miners and everyone involved in their safe return.  But the way it played out in the media really frosts my flakes.

Between 1999 and 2002 my professional focus was trained solely on the Andean Ridge, an area as rich in natural resources as it is poor in, well, just about everything else.  Consequently, I am well-aware of the myriad problems surrounding the mining industry in that part of the world.  So as news of the situation at the San Jose mine hit the world headlines, I (perhaps naively) thought the bright Klieg lights of the international media would finally illuminate some of these long-festering dilemmas.  No such luck.  Even during the long weeks leading up to the ultimate rescue, no one seemed to find the time to discuss the social, economic or political stage upon which this global melodrama was playing out.  Nor do I recall any connections being drawn to the Colombian mine disaster which killed 73 people less than 60 days earlier.  (You probably don’t remember that one.  Apparently in the absurdist world of Andean mining, death is common, but not dying, now that’s news.)  There was ample time, however, to discuss the guy whose wife and girlfriend were squabbling at the rescue site, and the miners’ reaction to the Chile-Ukraine soccer game.  And I’m not holding my breath that anyone will bother to do any reflective post-rescue analysis.  Indeed, the whole ordeal has already become a ham-handed punch line.  I’ve heard/read this joke a half-dozen times in the last few days: “Those Chilean miners were offered to a trip to (insert person, place or thing to be mocked), and they asked if they could go back down the hole.”  So while you may see a handful of kids dressed as Chilean miners on your Halloween doorstep this year (“Just put the candy down this tube.”) it’s clear this story is already vanishing into the news cycle ether, soon to be replaced by some 98-lb starlet with a straw up her nose, a finger down her throat, and a house arrest bracelet on her ankle.

But my gripe isn't with the media.  They only feed us what we want to consume.  And (surprise, surprise) evidently our appetite for heroic rescues (and squabbling mistresses) greatly outpaces our taste for debating nationalized industrial policy.  But I fail to see why the two have to be mutually exclusive.  I guess I’m just frustrated that the intense, emotional narrative of the rescue hasn't amplified the fundamental issues with Andean mining industry, but instead just drowned them out.

Now that’s a real tragedy.