My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 5, #24, January 16, 2000

TUG OF WAR

As best I can make out from partisan accounts, these are the raw facts in the case of Elian Gonzalez: his Cuban mother took him, a six-year-old boy, on a dangerous expedition on a rickety raft, without his father's knowledge or consent, presumably intent on achieving the good life in America, though we will never know, since she and the rest of her party drowned when their raft capsized. The scared little boy saw her die. Alone and adrift for days on a rubber tire, he must surely have wondered if he was going to die too. When he was found dazed and nearly catatonic, he was turned over to distant relatives he did not know, and became a political trophy to be awarded to the people who shout the loudest and wield the greatest power. How can this not be scary and confusing for him?

Since he landed on our shore, it is our job to decide whether he would be better off with his father and grandparents in Cuba, or with unknown relatives in America. This is a no-brainer. Normally we'd answer that question by considering the best interests of the child, which means of course we'd return him to the family he knows and loves.

Now, keep in mind that in the name of the "best interests of the child", social workers have restored children to crazed, addicted mothers who've beaten and burned them, and even to mothers who've killed the child's siblings, because Americans hold the bond between parent and child sacred. But not, apparently, when the father lives in Cuba.

Remember that our courts have forced an adopted child to leave the only family he'd ever known to be turned over to the natural father who never gave consent to the adoption, because the natural parental bond was all that mattered. But not, apparently, when the father lives in Cuba.

What happens if we try substituting other countries in Elian's scenario?

• A Saudi father takes his son to Saudi Arabia, without the knowledge or consent of the American mother who has custody. Our government calls that parental kidnapping, and sends stiff diplomatic protests to the Saudi government.

• A Haitian boy is found floating in the ocean near the body of his dead mother; his father in Haiti wants him back. Hardly anybody in this country cares, and the INS returns the boy to his father -- a scenario that has, in fact, played out several times.

But the Cuban-Americans who hold Elian captive believe his best interests are better served by letting him grow up in freedom and democracy with McDonald's and Disneyland for all.

Clearly, the argument over Elian has little to do with the best interests of the child, or even with the claims of freedom over communism. It has everything to do with the power of a strident, organized, politically active group of Cuban-Americans.

It angers me that any one group of people can hold such power over our government's actions. It's bad enough that they hold our policy toward Cuba hostage, and make us ridiculous in the eyes of the world. It's worse that they can do this with a little boy's well-being hanging in the balance.

But Cuban-Americans can do it only because pusillanimous politicians keep hoping somebody else will act and save them from antagonizing this powerful pressure group. Given a rare opportunity for leadership, Clinton, Gore, and Madeline Albright have been unforgivably craven. Only Janet Reno has strongly supported the INS decision to return the boy; only she has tried to educate the public on the issue and present it as the boy's right to be with his father and grandparents.

Cuban-Americans have this power because elected local judges who are indebted to them will rule in their favor even though they lack jurisdiction. And because rabid anti-Communist politicians like Dan Burton can get publicity by using legal tricks to keep the child here and defy the INS. These pols, who normally harrumph about family values, exercise considerable ingenuity explaining why distant relatives are better guardians for this boy than his father. ("His mother DIED so her boy could live in freedom!" Oh, please. I somehow doubt she planned to die, or that she thought her son would be sent to unknown relatives if she did.)

Cuban-Americans also have this power because Fidel Castro, by making an international incident out of this, put all our knee-jerk anti-Castroism into play and turned it into a machismo contest.

It angers me that our government has botched this so badly, at Elian's expense. There is no excuse for his plight still being unresolved nearly two months after he was found in the ocean. A government that truly cared about the best interests of a boy who's been through such a frightening experience would have returned him to his father and grandparents immediately so that he could take comfort from familiar surroundings and the people he loves.

It angers me that government inaction allowed the opposition time to organize. Now that the INS has finally decided to return Elian to his father, it may have lost the power to do so. Do we really want to send US marshalls into the middle of a seething mass of protesters to extract the child by force? CAN we even do that?

It angers me that this little boy has been robbed of his father because Cuban-Americans need him to be seen choosing America over Cuba. I hate to watch them bribe this boy with goodies, trying to convince him that these are an adequate substitute for the love of his family. It angers me to watch them depriving him of privacy because they need media attention to win their point.

Nobody looks good in this conflict except a six year old boy and his father. This is a tug of war between obsessed and heartless people who have forgotten that what is at stake is a real, live, sad little boy. And that sometimes, when two sides tug too hard, the rope frays and breaks.