An escapee from Communist China speaks out.
By Zehao Zhou, assistant professor, York College of Pennsylvania. National Review, 4/28/00 1:35 p.m.
The whole Elian Gonzalez saga has been an eye-opening experience for me. I grew up in a Communist country myself, and I resent to this day the brainwashing, indoctrination, and government abuses I was subjected to as a child; I naively thought Elian would naturally be granted the privilege to
stay in the U.S. and never have to go through the ordeal of growing up in a Communist country as I did.
But I was wrong. I watched with disbelief as a freedom-loving American public sided with a practicing Communist, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, just because he was Elian's father. I was flabbergasted to see U.S. Representatives Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, appearing on
national television speaking in favor of returning Elian from the land of the free to the land of despair and hopelessness. I was dismayed to see Rev. Joan Campbell, former head of the National Council of Churches, refusing to acknowledge that Cuba is not a free country where her fellow Christians
are persecuted. I found it surreal that Castro's government is in full agreement with the Clinton Administration. Obviously, when the world's most notorious dictator and the leader of the world's largest democracy see eye to eye, something must be wrong.
Needless to say, I find all this perplexing. The United Nations human-rights forum adopted a resolution on April 19 denouncing Cuba for repressing political-dissent and religious groups. The resolution was, interestingly, tabled by former Communist countries — the Czech Republic and Poland —
and co-sponsored by the United States. Cuba has also recently made the very short list of "Worst of the Worst" nations in the famed Freedom House Human Rights Survey. The Cuba Elian is being sent back to is, according to U.S. State Department's most recent Human Rights Report on Cuba, a
place where "education is grounded in Marxist ideology. State organizations and schools are charged with the 'integral formation of children and youth' and the Government employs forced labor, including that by children." " The same report clearly indicates: "Cuban Government
continues to intimidate, detain, and arrest dissidents and human rights activists. Hundreds of political prisoners remain in Cuban jails..."
Why on earth are the American government and public so gung-ho about sending Elian back to Cuba, where he will face the certain destiny of brainwashing and indoctrination? One newspaper commentator in York, PA, even suggested that Elian should have been sent back to Cuba within twenty minutes of
his arrival in the U.S.
I racked my brains for an answer, and the answer has to be that most Americans have no idea what it is like living in a Communist/totalitarian regime. They know Cuba is a Communist country, but that is too vague a concept for them and therefore doesn't bother them. They know a lot more about the
father-son relationship and the importance of abiding by the law. They go by what they know best: Hence the support for sending Elian back.
But the American public are not alone in their lack of knowledge about life under Communism, and it is difficult to fault people for what they don't know. Education can, I hope, make a difference.
In the late '70s and early '80s, when China first allowed some foreign experts to come in to teach English, nearly all who came were leftists, radicals, or Maoists in their home countries of the U.S., West Germany, Australia, Canada, and so on. They flocked to the Mecca for their beliefs and
causes, only to be disappointed, disillusioned, and sometimes shocked by what they learned and experienced about true life in a Communist/totalitarian country. They didn't leave China as Communist sympathizers.
Ever since I came to the United States 12 years ago, I have run into numerous people in this country who extol the Castro regime. They have never been to Cuba, or have paid only short visits to Cuba--where they were shown what Castro wanted them to see (that's what happens in China and North
Korea too). I have made a point of confronting them and challenging their knowledge about real life in a totalitarian regime.
I would really like to urge the Joan Campbells and Jose Serranos to live in Cuba for a while as ordinary subjects of Castro, and then come back to tell the American people that Elian is better off living in Cuba than in the United States.
Before 1989 — when the Chinese government killed the students — I met many Americans who actually told me that Communist China was a great country and didn't believe what I told them was actually happening there. After Tiananmen, many came to me telling how embarrassed they were that
they had to see blood to believe what I told them about life in China.
The process of learning involves a constant battle against forgetfulness. If we succumb to amnesia or choose to ignore what we remember, then we will pay a price for it, sooner or later.
In Communist China, my parents never had control over the fate and future of their children. I was sent to a reeducation-through-labor farm for six years, against my will and my parents' will; my brother was sent to the remote countryside where he worked like a slave for 10 years against his
will and my parents' will; hundreds of millions of Chinese parents had no control over their children's future, because the Communist government had the first say about what should happen to them, not the parents.
Anyone who would send Elian back to Cuba will have to settle it with their own conscience. I have no doubt in my mind that Elian will be used by Castro as a propaganda tool for as long as the regime there lasts. Elian will be made to feel ashamed of his mother who died for him. Juan Miguel
Gonzalez will have little to say about what should happen to Elian, but Fidel will. Whatever will happen to Elian once he is sent back to Cuba will come back to haunt those who sent him back.
Sadly, the only winner of this whole saga is Fidel Castro, courtesy of the American government and public.
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