Raids on Elián set a bad precedent
Mike Marchand
Questionable Freedoms
I suppose I now have something in common with the Progressive Student Alliance.
An action of the United States government sickened me. Not dining-hall-turkey or funky-quarter-dog sick, but that hopeless melancholy queasiness somewhere in your gut that only occurs when you watch a tragedy unfold. It was, of course, the federal raid to practically kidnap Elián González two Saturdays ago that brought about this illness. Polls say that most Americans support the raid, which only nauseates me more and proves that most Americans (including several Observer columnists) have no idea what life is like in Cuba.
Folks, Cuba is dirt-poor. Electricity and sometimes running water are shut off at 9 p.m. Modern technologies which we take for granted — automobiles, transportation in general, telephones, televisions and electricity — are at 1950s levels or worse. Since Fidel Castro's revolution, Cuba has regressed in almost every socioeconomic category; even where they have improved, it has been at a far slower pace than the rest of the world.
You wouldn't know that by listening to Castro, though. At international conventions, he has had the cojones to actually state that it is capitalism that causes poverty. The Cuban media is a willing parrot of this propaganda, which is another, more frightening reason why America runs hoops around Cuba: total censorship.
Imagine if, every day, The Observer's headlines were how wonderful the Administration is, how fantastic it is that they deny official University status to OUTreachND or how marvelous parietals are. Multiply that by every Cuban media outlet that can miraculously still function and you have the Orwellian nightmare that is Cuba.
When Kimmi Martin stated that because Castro was treated to thunderous applause, "apparently not everyone thought he was horrible," last Wednesday, she was not dealing with the shocking reality: the Cuban people have either been brainwashed into thinking that Castro is their savior or are afraid of the repercussions of having a dissenting opinion.
Martin laments the fact that she has not "heard from a Cuban who presents the other side." That's because there's only one side to Cuba: barbarous and economically backward. The Cuban refugees who populate Little Havana know this truth, escaped from it and are trying to keep Elián from being returned to one of Earth's closest approximations to hell.
Many people who do not understand these harsh realities say that it's best to return Elián to Cuba on the grounds of parental rights, when "parental rights" do not exist in Cuba. According to the Cuban Constitution, the boy is technically under the care of the state. This means two things: first, that Juan Miguel González is a non-factor in this argument since he is a non-factor in Cuba. Second, turning the question of where Elián stays into a debate over Castro and his control of Cuba is not "stupid, stupid, stupid!" as Gary Caruso stated on April 11, but actually the only proper frame for the argument. Should Elián stay here or should he return to Castro?
Juan Miguel is also channeling Castro's propaganda. In a TV interview, he read right out of the Castro Propaganda Handbook by saying that the U.S. is worse than Cuba because of things like school shootings, an argument strikingly similar to Clayton Swope's fallacious suggestions on April 20. Perhaps both of them can then explain why thousands of Cubans (including Elián's mother) risk their lives only to reach America.
Whatever your beliefs about where Elián should stay, if you were not sickened by Janet Reno reneging on her promises that there would be no midnight raid to take Elián by uniformed armed soldiers, you have a problem. If you could look at the now famous picture of Elián staring down the barrel of an MP-5 submachine gun without being repulsed, I'm quite sure you're not human.
Under the guises that Elián was being abused (made by a shrink who had never met the boy) or that there "might" have been weapons in the house, the Immigration and Naturalization Service sent in a SWAT team to grab him, then cleared a path by spraying tear gas at several innocent people in the house and at dozens of peaceful protestors outside.
Had this happened to Aaron Kreider and his "nonviolent army" in Washington, it would be brutality in the first degree; apparently it's as acceptable in Little Havana as it is in Havana.
If Elián was returned to Cuba peacefully and you asked him in 15 years what separates Cuba from America, odds are he would give you the flowery, America-as-land-of-milk-and-honey sort of speech that inspired his mom to sacrifice herself to ensure that he lived here. Now that his defining memory of the U.S. is the INS kicking down the door and all but kidnapping him, his response would probably be "¿Qué es la diferencia?" — "What's the difference?"
Mike Marchand is an off-campus junior English major who would like to remind everyone that his 20th birthday is July 13, and that he accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover or, at the very least, e-cards sent to him at Marchand.3@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, May 3, 2000
