Because You Never Asked

(This essay should be read in conjunction with the essay "Elian")

     Having completed the previous essay (see essay "Elian"), I find there is still more to say, mainly in the form of rebuttal to the usual diarrhea heard from the troglodyte elements of the Cuban exile community. Being that our Pravda-like media outlets either ignore or bury these simple minded lies and quasi-lies under an avalanche of acquiescence, this writer will take it upon himself to challenge this state of affairs.

     Let's start with one of the most basic, unchallenged myths created during this fiasco: the mother of Elian was a heroic figure, giving her life unselfishly so that her precious little boy could breathe the pristine air of "freedom", "liberty", World Wrestling Federation manhood, and Drive Thru cuisine. After digesting almost a half year of this ration of romanticized feed, one might picture this woman as a Cuban Joan of Arc basking in God's divine glow, her clothes tattered and torn as she secured her child to that rickety raft while --- with their fingers touching in a "Paradise Lost" kind of final farewell, with her ultimate gasp of dwindling strength, with, unbeknownst to her, God's protection mercifully watching over Elian's final few miles to Disneyland --- she pushed her beautiful little boy towards Little Havana, towards that nation of unparalleled joy and unmitigated, never before seen happiness, where "El Duque" himself has become the ace of the greatest baseball team the world has ever known, where "Pollo Tropical" now shares the landscape with McDonald's, Burger King, and other such bastions of E-Trade .

     Get the picture?

     It amazes me to think that not even once . not once . has anyone been good enough to at least morally challenge this woman's actions based upon how our law (and I'm sure Cuba's too) would consider what she's done. If a divorced woman runs off with a child without informing the estranged father, in the absence of any special circumstances (and don't tell me that political differences fall into this category), this is considered an illegal act. Being that Elian's father seems to have been actively involved in the boys material and emotional well being, his mother fleeing in such a clandestine way cannot be considered an "heroic" act, but an insensitive, weasely one.

     We must also question the responsibility of her actions. It's one thing for an adult to freely decide to make such an extraordinarily dangerous journey, but to drag a 5 year old boy, who can't possibly make such a decision for himself, into such a truly life threatening situation, has to be seen as a dubious, if not reckless decision.

     "Ah hah!", might shout the cave man leadership of the exile community, "do you see how desperate these people are for freedom?"

     I have seen a lot of Cuban refugees arrive to these shores. More importantly, primarily through my work, I've had the opportunity to interact with these later generations of Cubans fleeing the island, generally known as the "Balseros" (rafters). They are nothing like the original refugees discussed in the previous essay (see essay "Elian"), who were simply the social class displaced by a populist revolution. Most likely, the class distinctions that existed between these original, oligarchic, white skinned refugees, and the later arrivals since the Mariel boat lift in the early 80's, will reestablish themselves in south Florida. But the arrival of these Balseros is vivid evidence that the Utopia envisioned in the early days of the Revolution has not come to pass. Cuba is struggling and this essay is not meant to either defend or degrade Castro's regime (already a remarkable sign of objectivity in American terms), where the future remains very uncertain.

     But I do know that Elian's mother, like almost all the Balseros I've met, was not fleeing for any intellectually romantic reasons. There is very little that could be considered metaphysical or dogmatic about their flight. They couldn't give a black bean for elections, or "democracy", or civil liberties, or being "free", etc. and blah, blah. They, like third world immigrants of all varieties, are more concerned with a color TV to watch, a used car to drive, a cheap burger to eat, and perhaps a new piece of something with a Nike logo on it. To justify Elian's separation from his father due to some heroic flight to "freedom" by his mother, is more than somewhat misleading. (It is important to mention this because legal immigrant status in the Yanqui States of America is almost always based upon political concerns --- persecution and such --- not economic ones).

     "Brainwashing" has been a frequent topic during this whole episode. By now we all know that Fidel personally raises all the children in Cuba and that a Cuban parent is about as relevant in their child's upbringing as a ski pole in Havana.

     I'd like to remind everyone that every time your child goes off to Public School, you are handing him or her (it?) over to the State. I can still remember pledging allegiance "to the flag, of the United States of America" every single day of my school life up until the 7^th grade. I can never remember any instance during my obligatory stay in Public School where my country was the least bit denigrated. We were never told anything other than that this country was the greatest country there ever was, that our way of seeing things, doing things, throwing a curve ball, etc., was, is, and always will be the best way to do it. I was redundantly reminded of our virgin pure democracy, of our liberty and freedom, and it was vaguely insinuated that nobody else in the world had such a blissful right to seek happiness. Nowhere was it even remotely hinted that anything in our history was not done for the right reasons. We were always good. Our enemies were always bad.

     Undoubtedly, the Cuban community in Miami would refer to schooling in the United States as "education", while schooling in Cuba is referred to as "brainwashing". If we were to survey the Cuban women holding vigil in front of the Gonzalez house in Little Havana, I'd bet that almost all of them believe that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was born to a woman who had never been impregnated. One could easily find the teachings of a Marxist-Leninist school system more believable than that, and yet, there is fervent devotion to this chaste conception idea. Where did these people get such ideas? Were they "brainwashed", or was it simply part of their "education"?

     There has never been a country anywhere that does not take their children and try to make them into what they want them to be. Regardless of how one might feel about such a concept, it has long become common practice, be it in Cuba or the U.S., and the border line between "brainwashing" and "education" has still not been surveyed with any precision.

     I will allow myself a few more barbs at the burlesque we refer to as "news" coverage. The local Miami affiliates of our national networks, being the commercial enterprises they are, find themselves in a very compromised position every time anything having to do with Cuba becomes news. Earning a profit means pandering to the Cuban-American community, which is reflected in their news coverage. Propaganda can only be such when one assimilates it unconsciously. All the coverage of the Elian saga, be it from Miami or throughout the nation, had substantial elements of my media complaints, but the local outlets in south Florida have to raise the ante a bit (a lot?). (I won't even deign to discuss Miami's Spanish speaking means of diffusion, whose attitude towards news and information is no different than Fidel Castro's).

     One of these subtle, reality twisting exercises is the way in which people who want Elian to stay in America are repeatedly referred to as his "supporters" or "backers", giving the impression that they are on his side. This eventually leads to the assumption, for those who let such wording slip by without a thought, that Elian's father and those like him are "against" the young boy. After awhile, it seems as if his father is someone who the boy must be defended against or protected from.

     There is also something not quite accurate in referring to the boy's distant relatives in south Florida as his "Miami family", as if it existed on an equal footing with his Cuban relatives. Even as we approach the end of this drama, with the boy now in company of his father, quite frequently the great uncle in Miami is called his "uncle" and the female second cousin his "cousin". When a news story comes to us on a daily basis for a long period of time, such sloppiness can eventually change the reality of the situation. It even becomes possible to lose sight of the fact that Elian's "Miami family" is truly insignificant compared to his bloodline in Cuba.

     There are many people who believe the media has gone out of its way to make the Cuban exile community look bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our media continued to coddle these spoiled brats, just as they always have. If the Cuban-American community looked bad here --- and they looked very bad --- it was due to the pathetic nature of their reaction to this unfortunate incident. Here they are, 40 years later, prosperous and healthy in the richest nation on Earth, and they still haven't gotten over it. This innocent little boy brought out all the hate and frustration they still carry around with them. This hate and frustration is a cancer that has rotted away even their most basic concepts of humanity.