Cuban government releases photo of teenaged Elian Gonzalez
Ten years ago this month, the saga of a Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez captivated the nation and much of the world. Elian, 6, was found floating on an inner tube off the coast of Florida, after his mother drowned trying to reach America.
The Cuban immigrant community in Florida embraced the boy as a symbol of the struggle of ordinary Cubans to flee the oppression of Fidel Castro's communist regime, and rallied behind the boy's extended family in Miami, which sought custody of young Elian.
But U.S. immigration officials insisted that the boy be returned to his father in Havana. Agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted an armed raid on Elian's adoptive Miami home - yielding a powerful image of paramilitary forces in America menacing a frightened 6-year-old. Florida's Cuban immigrant community brandished that infamous photo as a reminder of what they considered American power effectively doing the bidding of a heartless Castro government.
A decade later, however, there are new photos of a nearly grown-up Elian Gonzalez - and they present a very different kind of propaganda image.
The new pictures show a serious-looking 16-year-old sporting a closely cropped haircut, wearing an olive-green military school uniform with red shoulder patches, as he attends a Young Communist Union meeting. The Cuban government press released the images under the none-too-subtle headline "Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress."
Since winning Elian's return to Cuba in 2000, the Castro regime has closely tracked the boy and his father. (Indeed, Cuban State Security has a monitoring station next to their home.) In his homeland, Elian Gonzalez is hailed as a national hero who embodies the triumph of Cuba over the United States. Every few years, the Cuban government has floated news updates and photographs trumpeting Elian's progress as a model young citizen of the Castro regime.
In 2004, NBC's Keith Morrison traveled to Cuba to interview Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and filmed footage of a communist museum that houses a bronze statue of Elian raising a clenched fist. After Elian's return home, his father was made a member of the Cuban National Assembly, and Castro has been known to show up at Elian's birthday parties and school graduation ceremonies. In 2005, in an interview with CBS' Bob Simon for "60 Minutes," Elian referred to Castro "not only as a friend, but also as a father." In 2008, Elian joined Cuba's Young Communist Union.
While Cuba has played up Elian Gonzalez's symbolic value in stoking nationalist sentiment, he still remains a more divisive figure in the United States, provoking fierce reactions on the American left and right. After the latest batch of photos went public Monday, the American Thinker weighed in with a rallying cry from the right, no doubt seconded widely in the Cuban immigrant community:
If Elian had been granted asylum, today he would be a teenager preparing to go to college with every opportunity for success ahead of him. Instead, on the cusp of adulthood, Elian poses for propaganda photos sandwiched between Cuban army soldiers attending the Union of Young Communists congress in Havana...The youthful Gonzalez should have been wrapped in the America flag. Instead a boy who once represented the quest for the God given right to be free, waves a Cuban flag symbolizing poverty, oppression, authoritarianism and misinformation.
--Brett Michael Dykes is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News
SOURCE
The Cuban immigrant community in Florida embraced the boy as a symbol of the struggle of ordinary Cubans to flee the oppression of Fidel Castro's communist regime, and rallied behind the boy's extended family in Miami, which sought custody of young Elian.
But U.S. immigration officials insisted that the boy be returned to his father in Havana. Agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted an armed raid on Elian's adoptive Miami home - yielding a powerful image of paramilitary forces in America menacing a frightened 6-year-old. Florida's Cuban immigrant community brandished that infamous photo as a reminder of what they considered American power effectively doing the bidding of a heartless Castro government.
A decade later, however, there are new photos of a nearly grown-up Elian Gonzalez - and they present a very different kind of propaganda image.
The new pictures show a serious-looking 16-year-old sporting a closely cropped haircut, wearing an olive-green military school uniform with red shoulder patches, as he attends a Young Communist Union meeting. The Cuban government press released the images under the none-too-subtle headline "Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress."
Since winning Elian's return to Cuba in 2000, the Castro regime has closely tracked the boy and his father. (Indeed, Cuban State Security has a monitoring station next to their home.) In his homeland, Elian Gonzalez is hailed as a national hero who embodies the triumph of Cuba over the United States. Every few years, the Cuban government has floated news updates and photographs trumpeting Elian's progress as a model young citizen of the Castro regime.
In 2004, NBC's Keith Morrison traveled to Cuba to interview Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and filmed footage of a communist museum that houses a bronze statue of Elian raising a clenched fist. After Elian's return home, his father was made a member of the Cuban National Assembly, and Castro has been known to show up at Elian's birthday parties and school graduation ceremonies. In 2005, in an interview with CBS' Bob Simon for "60 Minutes," Elian referred to Castro "not only as a friend, but also as a father." In 2008, Elian joined Cuba's Young Communist Union.
While Cuba has played up Elian Gonzalez's symbolic value in stoking nationalist sentiment, he still remains a more divisive figure in the United States, provoking fierce reactions on the American left and right. After the latest batch of photos went public Monday, the American Thinker weighed in with a rallying cry from the right, no doubt seconded widely in the Cuban immigrant community:
If Elian had been granted asylum, today he would be a teenager preparing to go to college with every opportunity for success ahead of him. Instead, on the cusp of adulthood, Elian poses for propaganda photos sandwiched between Cuban army soldiers attending the Union of Young Communists congress in Havana...The youthful Gonzalez should have been wrapped in the America flag. Instead a boy who once represented the quest for the God given right to be free, waves a Cuban flag symbolizing poverty, oppression, authoritarianism and misinformation.
--Brett Michael Dykes is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News
SOURCE