Time to let Wild Boars roam freely

If nature was mother, the cave the womb, the divers the midwives, then the 12 boys and their football coach have experienced a rebirth — the strangest rebirth because, held captive inside the wet catacomb for 18 days, they were reborn after escaping death by the skin of their teeth.

How close they were to each other, twinned by circumstances, science, or miracle: how close life and death were, the first chance and the final one, joy and grief, survival and tragedy, a happy ending and a horror conclusion. The world celebrates the former but let’s be mindful of the latter. We saved 13 and lost one — ex-Navy Seal Saman Gunan, so untimely, so painful — and as we salute the bravery, nerve, selflessness, expertise and professionalism of all involved, let’s not forget how close the whole thing was. How thin the line that distinguishes light and darkness is.

There are other thin lines that the cave story has made visible. For instance, the line that divides statelessness from citizenship, as three ethnic boys in the group and Coach Ekkapol Chantawong know well — the line that exists only in the bureaucratic labyrinth and over which they’ve learned to cross all their lives. Or the line between the known and the unknown: We want to know every detail about the incident, trivial or essential, either to learn valuable lessons or to simply satisfy our melodramatic curiosity fed by prime-time news.

Or, in the aftermath, the thin line between compassion and exploitation.

The infectious energy of the past 20 days — the media circus, the global spotlight, the heart-swelling humanity, the Hollywood-ready narrative, the Elon Musk subplot — is too good for many people to let it go unexploited. A couple of Hollywood producers have announced their intention to make a film about the cave boys — they sure didn’t wait for the caked mud to dry from the boots of the Seals. Reporters are still camping outside the hospital, waiting to snag the first interviews (“How do you feel, boys?” “What would you like to say to the audience?”), and television producers have made a move on their parents, families, friends, teachers. Book deals will come next; as will photo books compiling authorised and unauthorised pictures. Someone has proposed a museum in the cave (which will now be closed). Wax sculptors have started planning a vast collection of the 13 football players and the rescue team — a diorama of heroism for all to see! Naresuan University has offered a scholarship to all 13 Wild Boars members to study until — God help them — PhD. All of this while the boys are still recovering and four of them awaiting citizenship.

It may sound unbecoming to question the intention of these well-wishers. But seriously, do we need to see a movie about the boys’ ordeal, reenacted and shot in some fake grotto? Do we want to see their wax sculptures? For “hope and “inspiration”? I suspect that the dramatisation of their experience will be unnecessary at best and tasteless at worst. What could fiction do that reality hasn’t done already? The narrative of the cave rescue is so compelling because it unfolded beyond the simple thrills of any make-believe. When reality isn’t satisfying, fiction may be useful. Or not. Even films based on Sept 11 or the tsunami are underwhelming and unnecessary.

With the divers gone (and how dignified they are for shunning publicity), the boys and their families remain the protagonists in a saga that people don’t want to end. And as born-agains, led out of that cave-womb by those brave midwife-divers, the boys and Coach

Ek are now occupying that weird status as a mixture of celebrity, victim, hero, troublemaker, news source, survivor, PhD candidate, photo-op, and even “character”, as they prepare to deal with the pressure of scrutiny, fame, insistent requests and countless invitations. It will be fun for a while, I suppose. But as one of the rescued Chilean miners once trapped underground has advised them, it will soon be tough — maybe not as tough as those lightless days in the cave or the daring escape, but tough enough for teenage boys from the mountains who never thought they would have all the spotlight, the headlines and the expectation focused on them.

They’re the boys who live. They’ve been reborn, and the world they have been brought back to remains the same imperfect world as the one from which they first disappeared. And in this world, we should let them live their lives as freely they want, as footballers, or as farmers, or as not-so-bright students who can’t go all the way to a PhD, or as someone who can thrive or who can fail. Like regular people. Like boys.

Welcome back, Wild Boars. Now leave them alone.

Kong Rithdee is Life Editor, Bangkok Post.