Elian Gonzalez
01.31.00

Try this little mental exercise...

Imagine a six-year-old boy... playing, learning, living as any other six-year-old might. One day, the boy's mother takes him and gets on a boat to leave. During their trip, the boat capsizes, and the little boy is rescued by some fisherman after watching his mother drown. He is then claimed by relatives he's never met, and is kept by them, with them, away from his father and his grandmothers.

As if that's not bad enough, the boy is suddenly surrounded my photographers, politicians, reporters, and hundreds of other people who are demanding that he NOT be returned to his father. Not because his father is a bad man, but because his father lives in a bad place, run by a bad man. This goes on for a month, making this boy the center of attention for millions of people.

Sad story, isn't it? How bad do you feel for the little six-year-old?

Now imagine that he's YOUR six-year-old. Your little boy was taken from you, and there are thousands of people screaming for him to be kept away from you. For no fault of your own, except that you live in a place that they don't approve of.

Now how do you feel about the situation? How upset are you? Your wife is dead. Your son is taken from you. How does it feel?

More so, now how do you feel for that little boy? His life now belongs to reporters, to photographers, to politicians, to two warring governments, to relatives he doesn't know, to television, to radio, to protest groups.... all of which are using him as the bandana tied around the rope in the middle of a tug-of-war... a marker for political and social victory.

And that's the point in this entire mess that is STILL going on over Elian Gonzalez. Janet Reno said Elian should be returned home. So did President Clinton. So did the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). So did the State Department. And after all this, the boy is still here. Why? Because there are thousands of protesters saying that Elian should remain here, out of Fidel Castro's violent, state-controlled country.

This has become a political war, once again, between the US and Cuba. Janet Reno said it perfectly when brought up that not returning Elian would hinder any future attempt by the US to retrieve it's citizens from other countries, especially Cuba. She's right, you know. But even she is missing the whole point of this.


THERE'S A SIX-YEAR-OLD BOY IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS!!!
This isn't a missile crisis. This isn't about oil. This isn't about land. This is about a child... an innocent child whose entire family has been torn apart. His mother is DEAD. His father and grandmothers are being kept away. His life is now a media circus. HOW MUCH MORE DAMAGE DO YOU WANT TO CAUSE THIS KID?!?

Listen, I hate Cuban politics as much as the next guy. I think Fidel Castro is a psychotic asshole. I wish things were different for that country and it's prisoners... err, people. But it's not. And it's also where what's left of this child's family is.

If it was my child, I'd want my government to bomb the shit out of your country until you gave him back. Is one person worth going to war over? Well, it would be if I was that boy's father. And if you can see through all the political and social smoke that these protesters are blowing, you just might understand that. I don't believe there will be, or should be, a war over this situation. Just understand the love in a family that can make a (basically) stolen child worth that kind of turmoil, and you might better understand the situation.

This isn't about a political standoff. This isn't about whether or not we, as a country, approve of where this boy came from, where his father lives. It's about the little boy. That's really all there is to it.

Send Elian home.