Chile, Dispatches
Chile’s Sebastián Piñera Struggles To Keep Support After Mine Rescue
January 11, 2011 By Patrick Burns
While it’s clear the rescue was hugely symbolic, the meaning behind the symbolism is debatable. After the celebration, some analysts suggested Chile would be able to “rebrand” its image and be known for technical prowess and human endurance instead of a brutal dictatorship.
Amaro Gómez-Pablos, a well-known journalist with Chile’s national television station TVN, told ABC News, “We’ll flip the page over worldwide in terms that Chile will no longer be associated [with Pinochet]. The rescue effort of these 33 men has also meant the death of an icon that was always typically associated with this country.”
Piñera himself hoped for a similarly ambitious reappraisal of the country’s image. During his European tour immediately following the rescue he told the BBC, “I hope that from now on when people around the world hear the word Chile, they will not remember the coup d’état or the dictatorship, they will remember what we had done, all the Chileans together.”
Images of the 33 men who were lifted over half a mile in a futuristic capsule were powerful enough to captivate the world, and they will forever be part of 2010 memory. But don’t expect the event to be more than a footnote in the years to come. As New York University professor Patricio Navia said, “Pinochet is going to be in the history books, not the miners.”
Regardless of shifting international perceptions of the country, Chileans themselves surely have a reinvigorated sense of national identity. “I would say the rescue of the miners is going to influence this sense that we are capable of doing big things—that we have the technology and resources to face these crises,” Zamorano said.
Rare displays of patriotism swept across the country in mid-October. In Copiapó, the closest town to the San José mine, revelers packed the city’s plaza and watched a live broadcast from a giant projection screen. As each of the 33 men stepped out of the capsule, the crowd burst into a three-minute flurry of cheers. For Gabriel Ramos, 19, cousin of trapped miner Jimmy Sanchez, “the miners showed the warrior spirit of Chile. In this moment, Chile is the best country in the world.”
Wilson Vicenso, 42, a copper miner himself, hadn’t slept during the entirety of the 23-hour rescue. “This is something that none of us will ever forget,” he said. “And it’s not like a war or an earthquake, it’s something positive.” If only Piñera could find a way to inspire that sense of patriotism without a national tragedy, he may find it easier to accomplish lasting reform.
Image: Rescate Mineros @ Flickr.
3 Comments
Damned fine piece–thank you!
[…] With Chile’s 33 trapped miners safe and sound, President Sebastián Piñera now struggles to retain his popularity. Latin America News Dispatch contributor Patrick Burns reports. […]
Nicely reported piece, with a first-person reference. Why no by-line? Don’t we need to know who wrote this partly personal account? Just a quibble. I love what you are doing with this site. It recalls the Latin America Newsletter published by Stanford’s Latin American Studies masters students in the 60s–which scooped the world at one point on the impending invasion of Cuba. Print back then, web now, and still a great idea. Congratulations.
John Dinges
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