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Slaves of Steel Update: |
Modern Times
Smoke stings the eyes and chokes the breath. Everything is black at the charcoal plants: the burning wood paints a grim coating on the men, a camouflage that likens them to the charcoal they produce. They are like phatasmagoric knights, hidden by the smoke screen that escapes the furnaces, kept by the masters that feed them and leave them to sleep in the sheds. They could be living at any time in history, perhaps the Middle Ages. Or at a time when men and women were hunted and thrown into slave holds. In modern times, they are out of place, they have no identity, education, income or liberty. They do not vote, pay taxes, or have any of their rights recognized. It is a surrealist to accompany the release of slaves in the year 2004. First the Federal Police arrive on the scene. A worker at the top of a pile of wood sees their pick-ups racing through the site at high speed. Men jump out with heavy weapons, rifles, machine guns. They run and seize the property, pick-out armed men, stop the operations. In the third and fourth car come the staff of the Mobile Inspection Group of the Public Labor Ministry. From atop the pile of wood, the charcoal worker imagines three
possibilities: they'll kill him, arrest him or simply let him be
because they are not here for him. But he is wrong, he never imagined
that he would be freed, that his working papers would be signed,
that he would receive indemnity in cash. An operation of the Mobile
Inspection Group gives the feeling that the problem can be solved,
given the organization and performance of the people involved. (MC)
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This report is part of the publication "Observatório Social Em Revista" - # 6 - June 2004 - Florianópolis, Brazil English version: Jeffrey Hoff Published by Observatório Social
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