Folks, where are your hearts?
Where are your heads?
From where do true feelings come?
Don't you at least hate politics enough to not let politics play a role in love?
The matter of Elian has nothing to do with Clinton; has nothing to do with Castro; has nothing to do with Reno; has nothing to do with tv spin pulpiteers; has nothing to do with Little Havana; has nothing to do with INS/Border control agents; has nothing to do with images from photographs.
Simply put, it all comes down to a divorced Cuban mother seeking unite with her boyfriend on U.S. soil; and the true want of a loving father to unite and grieve with his son who witnessed the tragic fate of his mother lost at sea.
It really is that simple.
The argument Elian should stay in the U.S. has no more standing than an argument suggesting America, in effect, should "take" the Gonzalez' other child now visiting with them here in America. Is the call of "freedom" so selective that we "save" the older Gonzalez child, Elian, but not "save" the younger Gonzalez child?
This reminds me of a contest once heralded by the media in this country: Who will be the youngest child to pilot an airplane coast to coast? First it was the eight-year-old, then the seven-year-old, then the six-year-old and so on. And the media provided incredible coverage until it realized its own guilt and stopped providing such coverage.
Yes, there are limits.
Doesn't the argument that a six-year-old can't apply for political asylum become lost upon the discovery a child who can't yet communicate won't therefore enjoy the same right? Among other reasons, this is why parents and guardians represent the interests of children.
And clearly, under most laws in most nations, Elian's interests rest with his biological father, whose only so-called guilty act is that he resides in a country which America's rightwing doesn't like.
And what about this country, Cuba? And what about this country America? I'm told there's no freedom in Cuba. I'm told America is where it's free. Well, if America is so free, how come I couldn't watch on any channel, in the so-called liberal Boston area, Castro's speech relative to the Elian affair. Heck, I was informed Castro is a major player in this.
Is America so insensitive to freedom we can't even hear Castro's voice? I watched CNN; I watched FoxNews; I watched the major networks; I even watched C-Span, which gave us the president, attorney general, the White House press person, etc. No television station in America enabled us to hear the full text of Castro's speech. National security? Politics? Fear of opinion? Maybe we're not as free as we think we are!
Now that I've just thought of this, when do Americans ever get to hear the voice of a "socialist" on television? When's the last time you saw one on a Sunday morning talk news discussion? Heck, they won't even interview MIT's Noam Chomsky!
So add it all up, and what we get is a lot of agenderized folks who fundamentally could care less about a father and son grieving for a lost mother. I think the Elian incident demonstrates we've lost a bit of the true spirit and have become more insensitive to who we really are as a people.
SOLUTION:
Let this incident become a bridge to ending an absurd 40-year policy between America and Cuba.
Both Gonzalez parties should be able to continue to give love to Elian, however, with the father rightfully in custody.
So how can all this happen?
Cuba should assign diplomatic status to Juan Gonzalez, make him an attache of the Cuban embassy in America. This would provide a privilege such that the Gonzalez family can exist in both countries, thereby enabling the Florida family to visit and continue loving Elian.
And just maybe, in this process, with love as a means of inspiration, bridges can better be built between the two nations.
A musician, I leave this with an excerpt from a song I wrote:
In the land of our families,
you can hear a precious plea
In the land of our families
there is a time of need. |
