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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial: 12/10/99
Every Cuban leads a double life. There is the daily life in Havana or Mantanzas
or Santiago--an economy in the dumper; a U.S.-led embargo that has choked off even
basics like aspirin; a one-party state that gags even the mildest dissent;
and most powerfully, the sense that the rest of the world is hurtling into the 21st
century while you are stuck somewhere around 1961, with the hopes and dreams of the
new world economy flying past you like bits of spray from the Caribbean.
Then there is the other life--a translator works secretly building his own
computers from spare parts so he can hook surreptitiously into the Internet; the
teacher who runs clandestine classes in English in her home, depending on visitors for
everything from magazines to Scotch tape so she can keep her one frayed textbook in
one piece; the former philosophy professor who works as a bellman at the Habana Libre
Hotel so he can get tips in dollars and use them to buy color TV's, sneakers, and
chocolate at the dollar-only stores run by the government; the families who accept gift
packages from relatives in the States, but who refuse to leave their beloved island for
life in the cut-throat capitalist world of the U.S.
Truth in advertising time--my newest novel, LIVE SHOT, explores these themes in
the context of a fast-paced thriller for one simple reason: Cuba fascinates me.
It's an island where three out of four marriages end in divorce, and yet where family
ties remain as solid as the stone walls of the old Spanish fortress that guards
Havana harbor. It's a place where Fidel Castro has spent decades trying to wipe out
independent thought, and yet where every Cuban has their own pointed, animated
opinions. That's what happens when you lock up an island with a literacy rate of over
97 per-cent. People quickly realize their minds and spirits can never be caged.
And yet, and yet. Cubans are among the most fiercely nationalistic people on the
face of the earth. Their government has screwed them over ten ways from Sunday, yet
most of them would fight to the death against an invasion. Nuestra patria, they say.
Our country. It's sort of like kids whose father is an alcoholic and a bum.
They know what he is. And they'll punch you in the nose if you criticize him.
Which brings us to Elian Gonzalez, age six, poster boy for the dysfunctional
relationship between Cuba and the U.S. Elizabet and Juan Gonzalez were divorced in 1996.
She re-married. She and Juan split custody of the boy. Elizabet and her new husband
saved their pesos, along with friends and neighbors. Thier plan was to get a boat
and leave Cuba for America. They found the boat in Cardenas, a seacost town east of
Havana, a 17-foot fiberglass runabout. On Tuesday November 23, 13 men, women, and young
Elian crowded aboard the boat. It was overloaded for a trip across a placid Midwestern
lake, let alone into the dangerous Florida Straits in winter, where rough seas
hammer much, much larger vessels.
The engine died that night. The waves turned and pounded and finally capsized
the fragile craft. The passengers grabbed the inner tubes piled on the deck. Tuesday
night turned into Wednesday morning. The tubes were grabbed by the Gulf Stream current.
One by one, the refugees' arms grew tired. By Wednesday night, the weaker ones slipped
and sank, one by one, some quietly, some screaming, into the dark waters. Elizabet and
her husband vanished.
Thursday morning--Thanksgiving Day--a fisherman found Elian desperately clutching
his inner tube three miles off Fort Lauderdale. He immediately became a hero to Miami's
anti-Castro Cuban exiles. His great-uncle and aunt decreed he would stay with them.
Back in Havana, his father said he wants Elian back, that the young boy was taken without
his knowledge. Give me my son, he says.
After two weeks, that's where we sit. Elian, surrounded by exile power brokers and
a anti-Castro Congresswoman in Miami, is prodded by his great-uncle and aunt and finally
mumbles that he wants to stay in America. It was his sixth birthday party. In Havana,
Elian's picture has appeared on billboards across the island and is the focus on
thousands of angry demonstrators outside the American Interests Section. Fidel Castro
attends a birthday party for Elian in absentia in Havana.
If Elian were from any other country, he would be returned to his father. But the
Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 decrees that all Cubans who make it to the U.S. are
automatically political refugees. No other people get a deal like that. Both Castro
and the U.S. embargo toward Cuba are Cold War hangovers. Cuba threatens the United
States about as much as Honduras. We have normal relations with, and do business with,
China and Vietnam, whose troops killed tens of thousands of Americans in the Korean
and Vietnam wars.
But because of the same politically powerful exiles who surrounded Elian for his
Miami photo-op, U.S. policy pretends it's still 1963 when it comes to Cuba. And
Castro, the last Communist standing, pompously decrees that world socialism is still
on its' way, just a little delayed.
Where should Elian end up? Physically, he would have a much better life in the
States, no question. A world of opportunities would open up to him. But a friend of
mine asked a pointed question. If you were a child, would you rather live with your
parents in Siberia, or distant relatives in Beverly Hills?
Think about yourself, and your kids, and your family. What would you want?
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