Personal tragedy or public travesty?

The day that Elián Gonzalez changed from a normal Cuban boy into a media figurehead, we all should have known something was wrong with the picture. We should have questioned just how natural those photos were of a boy smiling, mere days after his mother's death, fresh off another ill-fated voyage from Cuba to America. Unfortunately, the photos of this little survivor, surrounded by family he had never met before, wearing his "Cuba Libre" t-shirt and laughing like any other child at Disney World for the first time, had their desired effect on most of us. We smiled too, without questioning why Lazaro Gonzalez, his great-uncle, invited a swarm of media along for the outing, or why Gonzalez had dressed Elián up as a human political statement. Some of us even had our heartstrings pulled tight enough to turn suddenly patriotic. God bless our nation, we thought, which grants freedom, liberty, and Mickey Mouse to each and every Cuban orphan.

DANICA NOVGORODOFF/YH

As disgustingly ignorant as all this may seem, the spectacle that is the Elián Gonzalez story—now four months old and counting—has had this effect upon millions of Americans. Similar to so many other interesting but relatively insignificant events, Elián's story might actually be worse than those of O.J. Simpson, Jon-Benet Ramsey, or Princess Diana, for this specific sensation involves two entire nations that care far too much. In Havana, Elián's sad face hangs on billboards while protesters demand the return of their kidnapped native son. In Miami, thousands of Cuban-Americans have taken to the streets of Little Havana, and Lazaro Gonzalez routinely sends Elián outside for the crowds to fan the protesters' flames. Everyone removed from the situation has a solution—George W. Bush, DC '68, believes that a return can wait until Juan Miguel, Elián's father, can prove he isn't a puppet of Fidel Castro; Al Gore calls for permanent U.S. residency for both Elián and Juan Miguel.

All of this protesting, baiting, mindless politics, and disgusting use of Elián as a martyr—his forlorn face plastered on both American and Cuban propaganda—still fails to stress the most important thing: neither Bush, nor Castro, nor any of the thousands of protesters, nor Lazaro Gonzalez is Elián's sole surviving parent. Juan Miguel is. All the rhetoric and propaganda in these two countries will not change the fact that both policy and common sense argue for Elián to live with his father in his homeland. Despite what America's game show of a refugee policy with Cuba would suggest ("Who wants to be a capitalist? Just swim these shark-infested waters and you will, provided you aren't Haitian!"), it is not common practice to let orphaned children stay on American soil if a parent or a close family member is in Cuba. Even Elián's two grandmothers, who have already visited him in America, are of closer blood relation to him than is Lazaro Gonzalez.

We have no right to question Juan Miguel's love or motivation in the way Bush suggests, as even the psychological tests he has been put through seem unnecessary—Juan Miguel was a part of Elián's life in Cuba, and there is no reason to deprive him of his right to raise his own son. As for the question of the psychological damage that a move might inflict on Elián, ask yourself: if I made a rough voyage to Cuba, saw my mother die, then came into a strange nation where cameras are always pointed at me, wouldn't I already be mentally scarred?

There's nothing left to discuss here, but perhaps there never should have been anything to discuss in the first place. Return Elián to Cuba peacefully and quietly. Then concern yourself with something more appropriate than another man's son.

Josh Drimmer is a freshman in Davenport.

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