ELIAN GONZALES--- FINALLY!

Victor Bloom MD

What happened to Elian Gonzales since November of 1999 didn't look good for the United States, but the most important thing is, it wasn't good for Elian, either. The six year old Cuban boy who was shipwrecked back in November of 1999 was unfortunately turned into a political football and religious icon. The boy was one of three survivors of a rickety boat that was to take him to freedom in the United States, his mother and nine others tragically dying enroute. Elian floated on an inner tube in the ocean for two days before he was rescued. God only knows what were his feelings and thoughts as he floated night and day for 48 hours!

He was caught in the remaining vestiges of the cold war, one that still exists between this great superpower and a poor Caribean island only ninety miles from Miami. In the larger picture, his plight was another example of how individual lives are swept up and disrupted by mass movements, by the inexorable and uncontrollable forces of history. Consider the classic examples of "War and Peace," "Gone With the Wind" and "Dr. Zhivago," which consisted of ordinary people trying to live quiet and peaceful lives, who were torn apart from their families. These painful tragedies have happened over and over during World War II and after that in East and West Germany, North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam.

In these disruptions many children as well as adults have been psychologically traumatized, and only a very few of them have had adequate diagnosis and treatment of their inevitable emotional disorders.

Elian will have a hard time of it. Upon landing on these shores he was swept up by his distant relatives in 'Little Havana,' who seized the opportunity to spotlight their identity as a political force in Miami and to blast their communist homeland and its longterm totalitarian leader, Fidel Castro. As the immigration and justice departments were paralyzed by conflicting demands, Elian became a media icon, shown daily swinging on his new swing and sliding down his new slide. In an attempt to win his affection away from his homeland and his father he was entertained and feted, taken to Disneyworld, given hundreds of toys and even a puppydog. He looked happy, but the child was not given an opportunity to grieve. He was distracted and showered with affection, in a vain attempt to distract him from his grief.

It was sad to see the boy caught in a growing polarization, with the justice department wary of offending the Miami Cubans and the immigration service stalled by conflicting and ambiguous rules. The candidates for president were alternatively cautious and craven, the president silent and the attorney general hamstrung until the very end. The American people admirably knew that the best interests of the child was for him to be returned to a private life with his father. Some Cubans compared his situation to sending a Jewish boy back to the Gestapo. Such was the rabid intensity of some of the Miami Cubans to make the point that communist Cuba is evil.

Were the best interests of the child to be with his father in Cuba or to be with his relatives in Miami? It was clear that the majority of child psychologists recommended that Elian be reunited with his father. Why were the Miami Cuban exiles so overwrought about his return to Cuba? I was puzzled about this till I saw the Cuban demonstrators around the home of Elian's uncle. There were many religious symbols displayed--- crucifixes, rosaries and images of Christ. Supposedly the boy's image cast a shadow which made a shroud, one that was already being heralded and worshipped. Since he was rescued from the water, he was seen as another Moses, and others saw him as becoming the Dalai Lama of Little Havana.

The strong religious pull was to contrast the atheistic totalitarianism of communist Cuba. The Cuban exiles reasoned that the lack of a religious upbringing would be detrimental to Elian's moral character development. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the religious demonstrators were fighting for Elian's soul. We couldn't send the poor boy back to the devil, after his mother risked their lives to bring him to a country with religious freedom. Actually, the divorced mother was fleeing Cuba with her latest lover, taking her son along for the ride. Another mother, seeing the fragility of the boat, left her son behind. There are laws in this country to prevent one divorced parent from removing a child to another state and preventing access to the other parent.

For Elian to be restored to normalcy, he needs to be allowed, belatedly, to mourn the loss of his mother. It is hoped that in the not too distant future, the boy will take the opportunity to sit in his father's lap and cry. He will probably cry long, loud and hard for his mother, as the loss for a boy of his age is incomparable. Elian will never completely get over this terrible loss, but chances are he will grow up to be a man in whatever country he chooses later in life, and with whatever religious belief he chooses to follow, regardless of his citizenship.

Dr Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of the Wayne County Medical Society. He welcomes comments at his email address--- vbloom@comcast.net.