Posted by Dr. R. L. Chacona on May 06, 19100 at 20:53:33:
05/06/00
All people arrive in America bringing with them very unique experiences. Like so many other arrivals, Cuban-Americans, remain acutely aware that many other Americans do not really know who they are and why they are here.
From personal experience, Cuban-Americans instinctively hoped to provide young Elian Gonzalez the same chance at family and parenthood, which they felt pionately fortunate to have had themselves. They even believed that through their combined effort to aid a young six-year-old, they, and the rest of the nation, might reach a deeper mutual appreciation. The Elian case has instead produced profound controversy and division within much of our society.
In Cuba, for the past 41 years, no one has had any of our constitutionally protected rights. Parents, as well as their children, receive the harshest punishments for any dissidence in word or deed. It is presumptuous for those who have not lived under totalitarian dictatorship to callously trivialize the reality of others. The problems of health care or violence in our schools, etc., would not be best solved with the immediate suspension of our constitution and the establishment of a totalitarian-communist dictatorship under which all people, children included, belong to the government. We would not all be more secure knowing children are learning to denounce their own families to the government for any politically objectionable feelings or any statements of contrary opinion. These conditions and a fierce desire to raise their children in liberty is now, and has always been, the most powerful force driving Cubans from their native land. This is the Cuban-American experience.
The responsibility of good government and the purpose of its laws are to protect the rights of individuals. The rule of law and the sanctity of our legal process is grounded on the concept of "good faith" interaction, whether among individuals or between individuals and their government. Because of their history, the Cuban-American community has been particularly mindful of the constraints of law throughout the Elian case. For this reason the law has been on their side from the beginning and on their side it has remained. On the other hand, our own federal government has arbitrarily applied and flagrantly broken the law without regard for the consequences. Sadly, much of the American public has applauded.
A matter of custody was elevated to national prominence when Eric Holder, pressured the INS into reversing its original directive that the question be handled in family court. Only then did the Cuban-American community adopt the interests of the Miami relatives as their own. By unilaterally reversing itself away from recognition of custody and family court issues, the federal government negated every Cuban-American's experience regarding parenthood itself. To Cuban-Americans, one child's custody did begin to represent the protection of parenthood in free society. To many Americans, in the absence of one parent, the importance of the surviving parent's physical custody seemed paramount. But from the Cuban-Americans' prior experience, beyond genetics, the importance of physical custody by parents wanes when it occurs under cirstances where any traditional parenthood is considered a criminal act by their government. Thus began the "tug of war" over young Elian Gonzalez.
Many began insisting that he be sent back to Cuba in order to be with his natural father; Cuban-Americans pleaded to have the father come to America to claim the boy. No one questioned the four-month delay by the Cuban government preventing even an arguably loving father from rushing to his rescued son's side. Cuban-Americans still anticipated an unbiased reunion. Instead, they were confronted with the unwillingness of our intervening federal government to present neutral locations or give any urances as to the conduct of the INS or of the Cuban "interest section" (a position not recanted until after the raid, when instructed to by the courts). What is in the best interest of the 'little boy' and father-and-sons' rights are central to this case, but all such issues were lost in the ensuing media theater. Without hesitation, many began their derision of Miami and Cuban-Americans, nationwide. Absolutely no merit was igned to the Cuban-American concerns or to the, then existing custody litigation. The mainstream's opinions were based on a personal interpretation of law or personal interpretation of morality. Morality is usually subjective but, unlike individuals, the law does not take sides; the law is inherently designed for blindness.
Justifiably, to simply turn over the boy without any guarantees on the existing custody issues was not a good faith possibility; not for Elian or for those who still suffer oppression worldwide. Awaiting the custody ruling by the federal appellate court, Janet Reno's self-imposed two-o'clock "turnover" deadline was not met. When the preliminary opinion of that court was rendered, it actually cast very strong doubt on INS's jurisdiction and on the turnover order itself. Court language favored the need for a custody hearing and, court language requesting mediation on the actual possession of Elian could not have been more compelling. Within less than forty hours after this 11th Circuit Court of Appeals statement, the Justice Department and the INS trashed that opinion by raiding the private home of American citizens. Mr. Bill Clinton has shown us how he could bend the law in word; now our attorney general, demonstrated breaking the law in deed: so much for good faith mediation, good parenting, or the rule of law. The government's position is morally and legally indefensible.
Incredulously, many, in the media and many throughout America, failed to grasp the implications of such a horrific police action and actually rationalized its merit. The foundation of our society is good faith due process over the power of the sword or the gun. Whether in Little Havana, South Central, Harlem, anywhere USA or the world, such excessive use of force is a crime. The INS raid should be severely condemned by the courts and by all people of good conscience. Those methods are unspeakable and detestable to everyone and most of all to the child involved. Excusing them, only serves to strengthen and unite the very worst of cruelty and police-brutality everywhere. It is extremely dangerous whenever such a serious issue of government incursion falls on deaf ears in civilized society. Others should look very skeptically on such so-called law enforcement lest they find themselves confronting such brutality again on some other future issue. As always, those who advocate it foster bigotry and racism in order to divide minorities and thus not to alarm too many people at any given moment.
Cuban-Americans would agree that parenthood might be one of the highest human rights of all. Tragically, like so many other immigrants fleeing oppression, both as parents and as children, several generations of Cubans-Americans have seen that sacred right sacrificed by a despot at his personal false altar for "society's greater-good." No form of morality can ever be legitimate when solely imposed by a single segment of a population.
The Cuban-American community now has a heightened sense of frustration and betrayal from what they thought would be a fair-minded society. Their continuing desire remains that the Elian issue and its complexities receive the dignity of full legal audience, something that no one could ever experience under any totalitarian system. We can only hope our courts will seize that opportunity rather than simply sucb to the Castro/Clinton side's bidding or the simplistic but continuous slogan of "back to the father, back to his father". Cuba, like all other well-established tyrannical, totalitarian, dictatorships, is in direct conflict with the very concept of parenthood and family values.
Now with his biological father and completely incommunicado, being whisked from one undisclosed grand government-mansion to the next, we and Elian are left with the indelible memory of that illicit forcible removal. The damage to the fabric of our society may have already been done. Are we expected to continue to debase a sincere aspiration to social virtue by equating it to a blind acquiescence to such extreme social injustice? The obstinate question remains: How important are the values on which our country or any democratic country was founded, and, how should governments and individuals of good conscience best insure that such principles are defended? Have we become so disillusioned in our own system of government as to not even recognize these differences? Fortunately, we are in America so I may freely leave these questions with each and every one of you. Regardless of the outcome in this particular case about a child's best interest and future custody, these are not simply matters of political differences, but also matters of complex moral issues and basic human rights. Since that dreadful Saturday, and THROUGH MAY 11th, MY FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HANGS INVERTED in distress, as a symbol of my conscience and of my solidarity against any such governmental intrusions on our freedoms.
I am a writer and a dentist, living in New York City. I was born in Cuba of a Cuban mother and a Greek-American father, both of whom were schoolteachers in Havana. My father was decorated in World-War-Two while serving in the US Army-Airforce against the Axis on the China-Burma-India front. I do NOT invert OUR flag lightly. On the issues of this article I am a distressed, concerned citizen.
Wake up America and let a little freedom ring!
Dr. R.L. Chacona
N.Y., NY
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