The Wall Street Journal. March 29, 2000. Review & Outlook. Little Havana
Wondering what kind of life Elian Gonzalez would have back in Cuba? We may have got a glimpse Saturday at a symposium sponsored by the National Committee for the Return of Elian Gonzalez to His Father in Cuba at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York. Not only were those with
opposing views barred from the event, two token representatives who were let in say they were intimidated by a self-styled "security" force, which first made sure they had no cell phones or recording equipment and then stationed eight people to stand by and glare at them.
So where are the champions of speech who compared Rudy Giuliani to Hitler for objecting to taxpayer dollars going to subsidize a pornographic Madonna?
Indeed, for all Mayor Giuliani's rhetoric, no one who wanted to go to the Brooklyn Museum's "Sensations" exhibit was denied entry or accompanied by a line of Republican thought police staring them down. A woman serving as bouncer at the Hunter College symposium told one of our editors
that the student group co-sponsoring the event reserved the right to select its audience. "If we had a party, we would decide who to invite."
Given the debate's subtitle ("How the U.S. government turned the tragedy of a little boy into a political toy") and the featured speakers (former attorney general Ramsey Clark, Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano, Cuban diplomat Rafael Dausa Cespedes), the direction of the "debate"
was never in much doubt. Yet even this was not enough. We ended up with a publicly advertised event at a public university where people were excluded not because of their behavior, but because of their views.
Two days later, it is made public that though Elian Gonzalez told Diane Sawyer he wanted to stay in America, ABC cut it from their broadcast because "we thought it best not to broadcast the exact words of a six-year-old child." Makes you wonder if the crowd at Miramax's Oscar gala --
whom Liz Smith says "shook the room" with cries of "Send him home, for God's sake" after seeing an excerpt from the 20/20 piece -- would have done so had it included those "exact words." Whatever happened to reporting the whole story and letting people decide for
themselves?
From the start we have made clear that our dispute is not with either the law or the boy's father. It is with the idea that we can purport to know what Mr. Gonzalez wants for Elian with Fidel holding the proverbial gun to his head. Looks as though some of those pushing hardest for his return
aren't much interested in finding out. |