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Correspondence regarding Elian
George L. Moneo and “Alan”
January 29-31, 2000
The NewsMax articles linked below regarding Elian were sent by
me to a friend of Irish extraction who lives in California. We’ll
call him “Alan” to respect his privacy. His response,
reprinted below, angered and upset me terribly. The brief correspondence
that followed his initial reply ended our friendship of five years.
I do not regret one syllable I wrote.
Editorial:
What if Elian Were Jewish?
Susan Rosenbluth
January 2000
Keep
Elian Free
Christopher Ruddy
Monday, January 24, 2000
January 29, 2000
George,
I thought even you would see that this should not be turned into
a political football. The kid is 6 years old and should be with
his father even if in a terrible place. I have to say, I totally
disagree with the hotheads in Miami and the rest of this nation
does too, they are only succeeding in proving to the US people how
heartless they are to this child's father.
Alan
January 30, 2000
Alan,
I see that you havent lost your duplicitous sense of outrage. You
rail at the “hotheads” in Miami—myself included—who
are in favor of keeping Elian here, yet you support the IRA and
its terror campaign (funded and trained by the Soviets, I might
add) that murdered hundreds of innocent men, women and children.
We were practicing non-violent civil disobedience. It inconvenienced
a few people and it will happen again if necessary.
An event like this can be turned into a “political football”
because politics is at the heart of the issue: the politics of democracy
versus the politics of communism, the politics of right versus the
politics of wrong.
I am a father, too. I can understand Elian's father's pain. However,
being the “father” does not automatically make him right,
nor does it automatically qualify him to be the right person to
care for this kid. He is an irresponsible, brainwashed Communist
who does not have the child's best interest at heart. He obviously
wants his son to return and raise him as a Communist. Is this in
the child's best interest? I think not. And what about the mother's
final wishes? She lost her life trying to bring her son to the US.
Are we to defecate on her memory? She speaks to us from the grave
with a clear statement: Elian belongs here!
I cannot condone Elian's return and I totally support the right
of Elian's Miami family who want to keep him from returning to Cuba.
Sending him back to Cuba and its communist system is prima facie
child abuse. I only wish the hypocrites in the Clinton Administration
who are so hell-bent on "saving the children" in the USA
from every fucking thing under the sun would only want to save Elian
from the hell that awaits him in Cuba. They don't give two shits
about this or any other child.
As for the rest of the nation disagreeing with us: we are used
to it; we don't mind. If the Cuban-American community has to be
the last loud, obnoxious voice crying in the wilderness against
Castro and communism, so be it. I would rather take the moral high
road and be called a “hothead,” than to sentence an
innocent child—any innocent child—to a life of communism
and misery.
Awaiting your response.
—George
January 30, 2000
George,
I fail to see where supporting the IRA in its fight to free our
country from over 600 years of oppression has anything to do with
Elian Gonzalez? But I will say that the Anti-Castro Machine has
sunk to new lows in using this boy to bring their focus back to
the tv screens of America. There are innumerable reasons why Elian
should go home, but I will just use one in a retort to your retort.
It is simply not fair and in fact racist that Cubans continue to
enjoy freedoms and priviledges not given to other peoples of the
world that try to Illegally enter this country. The simple fact
is if Elian had been named Joseph and had come from Haiti instead
of Cuba he would have been sent right back and without all the press.
And before you make the argument against the communists in Cuba,
tell me where anyone in their right mind would rather live Haiti
or Cuba?
There was an article in yesterday's Orange Co. Register about how
tens of thousands of Mexican children get deported every year, the
same in lessor number could be said of about every Carribean or
Central American countries' children. This has got to stop somewhere.
Elian through his mother (who by the way committed what I consider
child abuse by putting her child on a craft that was not seaworthy),
entered this country Illegally and should be deported. The only
way I would say he should stay was if he had no family back on Cuba.
This is hurting this country's foreign policy efforts to get other
countries who once dealt with Castro to stop dealing with him, it
is time for the Cuban “Exiles” to admit they are no
longer exiles and are simply immigrants. It is time for them to
assimilate into American society and act like Americans and not
Cubans.
Alan
January 31, 2000
Alan,
What do you think the last forty years have been for the Cubans
who, like many Irish, had to emigrate to escape oppression, or,
who living under a totalitarian system, dream of escaping?!? Do
we have to wait 560 years before you take our struggle seriously?
Are the Irish the only naturally occurring victims in nature—homo
sapiens eirelandensis victimus maximus perpetuus—whose
cause is worthy? Calling your stand on this issue “duplicitous”
was very accurate—and very kind.
Elian's situation is a microcosm of what we have suffered for forty
years. If Elian is sent back it is just another victory for Fidel
that allows him and his system to continue unabated. Even Sister
Jean O’Laughlin, who was in favor sending Elian back has changed
her mind seeing how the grandmothers reacted and how they were being
manipulated by the Castro regime during their meeting with Elian.
You say that we (the “hotheads” in the “Anti-Castro
machine") sunk to “new lows.” Yet you can justify
the 60-year IRA campaign of terrorism and its legacy of brutality,
murder and religious intolerance because it is “fighting to
free our country.” (“Our” country? I thought you
always criticized Cubans for not assimilating? Have you had a change
of heart?) What do you think the Cuban Exiles in Miami have been
trying to do for 40 years!?! Your statement displays the standard
anti-Hispanic, anti-Cuban DOUBLE-STANDARD and it's just plain hypocritical.
Why are you so bitter at the Cuban-Americans, anyway? I don’t
quite understand the undertone of hatred in your statement and I'd
like to know why it's there.
You, like the press and everybody else who has never been a victim
of Communism, insists on focusing on what happens in Miami, and
not on what happens in Havana. Do you think the demonstrations in
Havana were "spontaneous?" Are they not "using"
Elian? Why don’t I hear any scathing criticism of their actions?
It seems to be OK if Castro does it; if we do it we are "hotheads"
of the "Anti-Castro Machine" and it is "wrong."
As for your statement that we are "using" Elian, if you
call wanting Elian to stay here in the US free of Communism using
him, then we plead guilty. This is a fight for right, a fight to
keep an innocent 6 year old here in the US to experience a free
life instead of a life under tyranny.
The laws were passed in the early 1960s by the US to allow Cubans
to emigrate easily to the US after the Bay of the Pigs disaster.
They could have been repealed a long time ago and haven’t
been. The US immigration laws ARE unjust and I want the same rules
applied to everybody. I believe in totally free immigration into
the USA. Of course, no freebies or goodies would be passed out to
anybody.
I agree with you about the Haitians and I think it is just as wrong.
If this were a Haitian kid, I would want the kid to stay here as
well. I do not have an inconsistent position here. I am in favor
of NOT deporting ANY child, whether Haitian, Cuban, Jamaican or
Saturnian. Unfortunately, this country’s immigration policy
is racist, arbitrary and unjust. The reason is all of the goodies
paid for with my money (and your money) that goes to immigrants
(legal or illegal). Cut the freebies and you will only get those
here who want to really want to come here.
Your statement about Elian’s mother surprises me. It is cruel
and dismissive of people’s desire for freedom from oppression.
I guess my parents were guilty of child abuse when they pulled the
comfortable rug out from under me in 1960; and the parents of the
Peter Pan children who sent their children here by themselves were
guilty of child abuse as well.
Is every parent that brought kids to this country at the risk of
their lives guilty of child abuse? Are East Berliners trying to
cross the Wall to freedom child abusers? Are German Jews and Russian
Jews risking everything to get to freedom child abusers? The Russians
doing whatever it took to get to freedom, are they child abusers?
THE IRISH? Does anybody in your skewed world-view have the right
to risk their lives to come to freedom?
If Elian were Irish and the situation were similar you’d
be falling all over yourself to justify why he should stay here.
Give me a break.
I am ready to admit we Cubans are “immigrants” and
not “exiles” when you do. When you defend the IRA as
fighting for “our” country, your double-standard begins
to show (a Freudian slip, maybe?). Your country and my country is
the United States of America. I can still take a passionate interest
in the affairs of the country of my birth just as you do in yours.
But I do not call Cuba “my” country as you described
Ireland. Many anti-Castro Cubans here in Miami—and I am not
one of them—still think of Cuba as their country. Since you
think Ireland is “your” country, what’s good for
the goose is good for the gander, yes?
Now, do you really believe that the US is exercising “foreign
policy efforts to get other countries who once dealt with Castro
to stop dealing with him?” Do you actually believe that? That’s
very funny. This administration is desperate to kill the embargo
and have “relations” with Fidel. You seem to forget
that Fidel is a BIG hero to the left in this country; everything
he does against the US is OK with them. You have just joined all
of them by indirectly defending Castro’s desire (not the Father’s
desire) who bring Elian home. It is only because of the political
pressure we “hotheads” here in Miami have applied that
the embargo is still in force. And if Castro lives another hundred
years, then the Embargo should go on for another hundred years.
We have the embargo; the IRA has C4 and Kalashnikovs.
It appears that you and I both hate oppression. You, however, are
very selective in who you want freed from it.
—George
Alan did not reply to my final letter in 2000. Five years later,
on April 2, 2005, I received this email from him:
I read your Blog—haven't been blogging
for a while I see. I also see you posted our conversation on Elian.
I wanted to write to you to explain why I now consider his return
to Cuba to be a mistake made by this country (one of many by the
Clinton admin.)
While I still believe the Cubans living in S.Florida need to have
a change of attitude as far as looking at themselves as temporary
Americans and get on with bringing S.Florida out of Latin America
(I know this is happening but I feel it should have already happened).
I now know that my position, one I took as a father, was wrong.
He should never have been forced back to Cuba. He should have been
allowed to live in freedom. I came to this conclusion, sad to say,
after 9/11.
I too took the freedoms we have here for granted and while I knew
there were no freedoms in Cuba, I thought just being with one's
family was more important. I now know that is not true. Freedom
ranks higher than family and only below faith in God.
I hope you accept this as a very late apology.
Alan
Good people will always come around to what is right, and not what
is expedient.
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