So you thought the Cold War was over? Think again.
The case of Elian Gonzales shows that the Cold War is still alive. At its
worst, the Cold War drove normally rational American leaders to prop up
dictatorships around the world, to deny American citizens basic
constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech, and to investigate
law-abiding citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, sexual practices
and private lives. Irrationality prevailed because political fanaticism was
allowed to influence the national leadership, and individual lives and
families were destroyed in the process.
So here we are again, with militant anti-Communists holding a small child
captive in the name of ideological principles, while the nation's leaders
wring their hands and pander to a small group of Cuban exiles who
gleefully manipulate the national media.
On a rational level, it is certainly true that any child is much better off living
in a place with a loving family, where social policies ensure that children
get enough to eat, decent health care and a good education, and where it
is safe to play in the streets without the danger of widespread violence.
For those reasons alone, Elian should go back to Cuba.
Cuba has a much better record than the United States on such
child-friendly measures. With extremely high rates of literacy, low rates of
infant mortality, universal health care and safe streets, children thrive in
Cuba.
Of course, Cuba is a poor country. But there are far more children in the
United States who are poor, hungry and homeless than in Cuba. Elian's
loving family lives in Cuba. His relatives in Miami are putting his health,
well-being and safety at risk by holding him hostage and defying the laws
of the land. It looks like a no-brainer that should have been resolved
swiftly months ago.
So what, really, is at stake? A small group of Cubans who were on the
losing side of a revolutionary war came to the United States, and now
control political power in Miami. Sure, they are angry at Fidel Castro. The
dictator they supported, Fulgencio Batista, lost to the dictator now in
power, Castro, who confiscated their property.
No doubt, when the Tories found themselves on the losing side of the
American Revolution, and the new government confiscated their homes
and property, the losers went to England and fumed against George
Washington. But the war was over, and it did not take 50 years for the
United States and England to make their peace. The losers of the
American Revolution did not flex their political muscle to force the leaders
of England to hold a perpetual grudge against the United States.
But the Cubans have held a special status in the United States because
Castro is a Cold War enemy. Not because he is a dictator. The United
States supported many dictators who were true thugs throughout the Cold
War -- but they were "our thugs." Castro was on the other side. The
losers in exile have kept the Cold War with Cuba alive, even when it has
collapsed everywhere else.
The Miami Cubans have flexed their muscle and reduced the nation's
leaders to wimps and weaklings. They have been able to do this by
playing the card that was always most salient during the Cold War: the
family. Cold Warriors insisted that Communists destroyed family life. They
claimed that true family life could prevail only in a capitalist democracy.
Indeed, the consumer-oriented suburban home became the symbol of the
American way of life.
In the early '50s, the government propaganda film "The Commies are
Coming" featured Jack Webb, the famous TV detective of "Dragnet,"
warning Americans that if Communists took over the country, wives
would grow cold to their husbands, teenagers would run away to
collective farms and young children would turn in their parents to local
authorities. There was nothing in the film about communism as a system
through which the government controlled the means of production. Rather,
it was a warning that a Communist government would control, and
destroy, families.
So here we are in the 21st century, and still the old myths of the Cold
War remain alive: No true family can survive under communism. Family
life can flourish only under American capitalism. The "best interests of the
child" are twisted into the assertion that Elian would be deprived in Cuba.
He would indeed be deprived: of an unhealthy fast-food diet, of the toy
guns and war games that feed our nation's obsession with violence, of a
society where the rich get richer at the expense of the much larger
numbers of poor.
Cuba is not a perfect society, and neither is ours. But one thing seems
clear: At the moment, as the showdown over the Cuban muscle crisis
looms ahead, the mighty Cold Warriors in Miami are flexing and strutting,
while the nation's flabby leaders are getting cold feet.
Holding a child captive, in violation of the law, against the wishes of either
parent, used to be called kidnaping. But in the warmed-over rhetoric of
the Cold War, it's now called "the best interests of the child."
startribune.com
I sure hope you never have 'the best interests of' my child in mind, Duncan. |
