Who is this child, and why should we care?

Well, it was ten years ago today that the U.S. Ministry of Justice, under the guidance of Janet “Waco Babe” Reno and Eric Holder raided into a Miami bodega to “liberate” a six-year-old child named Elian Gonzalez. Some of you may remember him. He was a refugee who watched his mother drown as they attempted the perilous swim between the island of Cuba and Florida.

The affair grew into an international incident, with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro taking the world stage to demand father’s rights for Elian. As the boy’s surviving parent, and a loyal citizen of Cuba, it was deemed to be in Elian’s best interest that he be returned to his daddy immediately. No attention was to be paid to the mortal price that Elian’s mama paid for wanting a better life for her son and herself.

How quickly the decades pass when you’re having fun! Al Qaeda was a blip on the radar, it was an election year, and Americans were still debating what the cunning linguist who occupied the White House meant when he said “that depends on what the meaning of is, is.”

How strange and twisted the world has gotten that those unsavory days seem almost innocent compared to the moments we are living in!

At the time, I recall sitting down at an old-fashioned electric typewriter and banging out a mediocre parable titled “The Slave Catchers.” I drew on some little-known history; in the antebellum South, when slaves deserted a plantation, bounty hunters were called in to track them down and return them. In the story, names, races, and circumstances were changed, but the premise was the same. A mother, wanting freedom and a better life for her young son, headed north. She drowned as they crossed a river—shades of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it was Eliza on the ice floes!—but the boy made it to the haven of a free state, where he was taken in and cared for by relatives.

Two slave catchers showed up, demanding custody of the child. They were cursed and pelted with horse dung, as was the custom of the time. Guns were drawn, and under the color of federal law—which was reality at the time—the escaped slave child was seized and returned to his master.

My writing has improved slightly over the years, and I’m glad I don’t have a copy of the story any longer. At the time, it was a way of venting my shared outrage at seeing the infamous photo of Elian in the arms of that Dalrymple fellow, the fisherman who had saved him from the water and happened to be on-scene when the INS stormed in. You might remember that photo; Elian and Dalrymple were sheltering from the onslaught in a closet, and a SWAT soldier had a submachine gun thrust into their faces.

A subsequent lame explanation by the Ministry of Justice pointed out that the cop’s finger was indexed on the trigger guard, indicating he didn’t intended to harm anyone. I have had guns pointed at me, and always understood the intention as being that of mortal peril. Still, after an FBI sniper killed Randy Weaver’s wife and fourteen-year-old son at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and other federal agents had burned dozens of people to death in Waco, Texas over misguided religious beliefs, I guess the powers-that-were had to say something to mitigate their behavior.

I broke with personal inhibitions and showed my fictional short story to a Cuban friend. The next day, he pestered me for permission to send it to a local publication catering to the Cuban expatriate community in Little Havana. I shrugged and told him “Why not?” If “The Slave Catchers” still exists in any form, it might be in the archives of whatever magazine Paul sent it to. It wasn’t a particularly good literary invention, but it was rife with symbolism and comparisons between the ante-bellum plantation system of the Old South and modern-day Communist Cuba. The fact that I would let a manuscript out of my control is your best indication that I thought I had something meaningful to say, no matter how poorly it was stated.




Elian is sixteen years old now. A recent picture portrays him in a khaki uniform, displaying a Cuban flag. Sixteen is tantamount to manhood in Third World countries, and the glories of collectivism have frozen Cuba into stasis as a Third World nation. I wonder what he thinks these days. We begin to get a few clues about the nature of the world at age sixteen. Is Elian a pawn of the state, as his father was, or does he remember his mother in the water, dying to get him to a better place than the tropical paradise where he now resides?

Communism, collective thought in general, and socialist tenets are hip nowadays. You have to look no further than the White House to see this. It is arguable that we made Castro what he became, by refusing to accept him as one of “our” proxy dictators during the cold war. The 1960s fervency of anti-communism was somewhat laughable, but as time goes on and the world evolves, my respect for those stodgy old Cold Warriors increases.

At the time, Elian was the poster child for the escaped slaves of the communist system who sought a better way of life. Would he be any better off today, selling used cars or working at Mickey D’s in Miami? I think so, but like so many others, I am not allowed to ask him. He remains on the Cuban plantation, a man now, wearing a uniform and a state i.d. card that is eerily precognizant of Obama’s plans for AmeriCorps, should our one-trick pony be allowed to continue running plays from his Manchurian Candidate manual.

Life comes down to personal minutiae, and I can only hope that Elian Gonzalez is finding some happiness where he’s at. It tore my heart out to see that child terrified and seized by thugs in full-dress battle uniform. Today’s reminder of that incident, and seeing the pictures, makes it all come rushing back.

Elian, the door is always open, and I will personally take you to Disney World if you want to try the Florida Strait again.