| The picture stays in my mind: an innocent
6-year-old, still mourning the death of his mother, forced by a
submachine gun to comply with a court order because the adults who
want to help him can't find a more creative solution. It worries
and saddens me that any modern-day government would feel justified
to terrorize a child in a violent predawn raid. Haven't we gone
beyond this kind of autocratic and dangerous "any means to an
end" thinking? Elián may have cried for "only five
minutes" that fateful morning, but there is no doubt that the
memory of the predawn raid that took him by force will last
forever in his heart.
My dream is that there will come a time when no little boy
would be raised with so few examples of compassion that he would
become a man capable of terrorizing an innocent child with a
submachine gun - simply because his job requires it. Everyone
would recognize this as the cowardly and cruel act that it is. It
just wouldn't happen. What more creative and compassionate
solution might Janet Reno have been forced to discover in that
situation? Unfortunately for Elián, we will never know. Here is
some advice for the Janet Renos of the world: when the only
solution you can find includes terrorizing an innocent child with
a submachine gun, keep looking!
In a unanimous ruling, the 11th Circuit Court ruled that any
alien - even a child - can ask for asylum. This ruling has worried
those who fear the legal ramifications. If a child can ask for
political asylum, what other rights might children demand? Time
writer Richard Lacayo wonders if first graders will be allowed to
sue their parents if they are punished1.
Perhaps children should be given this right. Punishment solves
nothing and just makes a bad situation worse. It damages the bond
between parent and child, misses a golden opportunity to teach
compassion by example, and is ultimately ineffective because it
ignores the underlying causes and the unmet needs that all
"misbehavior" signals.
In Scandinavian countries, there are child ombudsmen that all
children can turn to if they are not receiving the loving care and
compassion that every child needs and deserves to have. Children
in those countries have won the right to be heard when their human
rights are overlooked. Soldiers, slaves, women, the handicapped,
gays, people of color, pets, and endangered animals have all had
their day in court, and their rights recognized. When will
children, who should have been first on this list, finally gain
their place on it? When will we finally understand that children
are human beings who deserve to be treated like human beings? When
will we listen to children?
Throughout this episode, I read the views of many people, but
there was scarcely any discussion of Elián's own feelings on the
matter. If we have learned anything from his situation, I hope it
is that all children deserve to be heard, and to be treated with
compassion at all times, even when the adults around them have run
out of creative solutions. "Any means to an end" is just
not good enough for our children.
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