Elian, Get Out of the Circus!
HAVANA TIMES – A quarter century after becoming famous against his will, Elian Gonzalez has once again stepped into the spotlight, following several interviews during the 9th Continental Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba in Mexico.
The six-year-old boy who, in the year 2000, became a symbol of the Cuban people’s struggle for his return after shipwrecking alongside his mother and her partner, is now an industrial engineer and a member of Cuba’s National Assembly (a deputy).
However, his words make it very clear just how much brainwashing he has undergone over the years. He was never an ordinary citizen—he received gifts directly from Fidel Castro, for instance—and he never lived “by the ration book.”
Let’s start with his history lessons, because he said the following: “It was a plundered Cuba, a poor Cuba, a population that was being exterminated, a population living under a real tyranny, a population whose rights were being taken away.”
The only true part is that 1950s Cuba lived under a tyranny, but the only difference with today is that the former was openly bloody, while the current one tramples on Cubans’ rights just the same—only its crimes are committed in the shadows.
Then he talks about the Revolution’s achievements: education, public health, culture, and sports—but he doesn’t mention that each of those “accomplishments” today is shameful.
Following the official script, he blames everything on the “blockade” (US embargo), even if the government that’s been in power for more than 60 years has committed grave errors.
To begin with, blockade or no blockade, no government that makes those kinds of blunders would have remained in power under normal conditions. Why doesn’t he talk about free elections, democracy, or human rights? Quite simply because he’s yet another beneficiary of that ruling elite, conveniently forgetting that it was precisely thanks to democracy that he was able to return to his father, as international justice dictated.
Was it the Cuban Adjustment Act that motivated his mother to leave the island on a dangerous sea crossing that cost her life and risked his innocent one—and not the hardship she was enduring? You don’t even believe that yourself, Elián, you who now work as a private entrepreneur in the western province of Matanzas and enjoy privileges that place you far from the reality lived by most Cubans—mired in poverty, scarcity, and lack of freedom.
The “rafter boy” forgets that after all this time, things are worse, and he prefers to see the speck in someone else’s eye instead of betting that others might try something different from the failed experiment we’ve been repeating for decades—ignoring what blocks our own vision. It’s easier to point fingers than to look inward.
He was born along with the so-called “Battle of Ideas,” but he doesn’t want debate; he wants everything to stay the same—only without the blockade—because, according to him, “it’s a strangulation of the people, not of the government.”
He claims this prevents a “normal economic flow with other countries.” But come on—how could there be a normal flow when Cuba is not a normal country? We’re an unfinished poem, a cracked mirror reflecting distorted realities—and yours Elian, apparently, has nothing to do with mine.
The telescope of denial has a special filter that distorts responsibility until it disappears; what’s needed instead are magnifying glasses—to look at your neighbor’s face as they pay for food. Then you’ll see that the soup of nonsense you’ve been defending doesn’t taste “normal” at all, but rather like pure indigestible absurdity.
We dance to rhythms others can’t understand, behind the invisible walls we’ve built ourselves. How can one talk of a “normal economic flow” when even the air we breathe is tainted with mistrust and fear of change?
He even dared to say that once the economy improves “many of the Cubans who have emigrated will gladly return because Cubans are very patriotic and family oriented.” No, Elián—they’ll return when the country’s politics change. Don’t forget that Cuba is desperately crying out for investors. Why are entrepreneurs leaving? Because of the blockade? No, because of the obstacles the government itself imposes: unpaid debts, forcing workers to march in parades, stuffing their workplaces with Communist Party members, and failing to pay them what they’re owed.
You’re no longer a child, the innocent gleam in your eyes from 25 years ago is gone, and instead of denouncing the repression, censorship, or misery suffered by your people, you choose to justify power and conceal the creaking bones of a nation dying in silence—sheltered by the indifference of those who, like you, must choose between speaking out or remaining forgotten, thus perpetuating the wretched conditions of constant blackouts, crumbling hospitals, and the mass emigration that is bleeding the country dry.
In her grave, your mother must be deeply disappointed, knowing she died trying to give you freedom, only to see you become yet another puppet of the dictatorship that used and continues to use you as a political emblem.
In your metamorphosis, you look the other way; you’ve found comfort in justification, while the Cuba you supposedly defend turns into a mausoleum of withered hopes. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of your compatriots—perhaps even some who voted for you—cross rivers with torn hearts and suitcases full of broken dreams.
Elián, every silence is a grain of sand added to the beach of complicity and sometimes ambition silences conscience. You’re no longer a child, but at 31, you’re still young—don’t go on being part of that machinery that perpetuates horror.
You’re not even close to being an operetta villain—just a secondary character who, out of inertia, serves coffee to the tyrant. Start calling things by their name. It’s not “a complex situation,” it’s a disaster.
You don’t need to throw a shoe onto the stage (though the temptation is understandable). It’s enough to stop applauding—to let your laughter no longer join the obligatory chuckle, to let your silence turn from approval into something eloquent, uncomfortable, suspicious. A well-placed “why?” has the power to stop the machinery. If you do, your fellow cast members will hate you—but your conscience will give you a standing ovation.