Father = Fidel Castro. Nuff said.
Over the past three years I have been confounded by the issues involved in the Elian Gonzales story. It has touched conflicting emotional, logical, and political sensibilities for me.
I started out on the fence. I was torn by two strong influences: 1) My disdain for the Clinton administration, and 2) My feelings as a father.
I cannot change my "knee-jerk" opposition to anything that Clinton and Reno ever did. Like Pavlov's dogs, I have been well conditioned. Clinton's lies are my dog biscuits.
As a father, I readily identified with Juan Miguel. But, we have to separate the way we feel from the way we imagine that he feels. It is all a matter of context. We understand being fathers in our country…...a country were we have rights to due process and we have free will in matters of parenting. Does Juan Miguel? No! Why are we obligated, for the sake of argument, to grant him rights that he does not even have in his own country?
These realities have to be considered. He cannot, and could not, say what he really wanted. Comparisons that treat the situation in Havana and Miami as equal are intellectually dishonest. We demanded parental rights for Juan Miguel, when in fact, only Castro can grant him rights. And, Castro has a 45-year track record of not granting those rights!
If we want to identify with Juan Miguel, lets look at everything he did. It may be true that he had no choice when Elian's mother left Cuba. No choice, at least, that he could voice in Cuba. So, mom and Elian leave Cuba--and the rest is history. What would you have done at that point? I know I would have been on a plane IMMEDIATELY! So would you.
But, what did Juan Miguel do? Or it would be better to ask, what could he do? His choices were limited. Limited not by the US Government or the family in Miami. They were, and are always, limited by Castro alone. Juan Miguel cannot choose to carry out Elian's mother's wishes and allow him to stay in the US. (Although, there are reports that he called the family in Miami and asked them to keep and care for Elian. He called collect, and there are phone records.) Juan Miguel can't even choose to come to the US. When Castro finally let him come, he had to stay in Washington DC. Why? Is that what we would have done? I would have gone to Miami, where my son was.
Who is really free here? The family in Miami is free--Free Americans!. And what did they do when Elian is taken from Miami? Now I can identify, and so can you. They were on the first plane to DC. Their feelings for Elian are clearly and unequivocally reflected in there actions. They quickly followed Elian, because they were allowed to!
Tank
I'll second that. I don't care where the family is from ... the boy belongs with his father. Where the father chooses to raise him is up to him, and while he may not make the right choice, it's still his decision. Now before anyone says Castro made his decision for him, I ask this ... where was the gun to the father's head? I didn't see one.