Advice and a poem for Hillary Clinton
By
Carlos Lazo Read Spanish Version
I
confess that I feel admiration, respect and even gratitude toward
Hillary Clinton. The admiration and the respect are in response to
the senator’s social and political trajectory during most of her
public life.
Mrs.
Clinton has been an indefatigable defender of the rights of children,
women and the powerless in general; she has been a tireless advocate
of bringing a little sanity into the U.S. health system and solving
the problems of the millions of citizens who have no medical
insurance.
From an
early age, the former First Lady made clear her progressive stances
regarding ways to improve the living conditions of her compatriots
and somehow humanize the "you’re-on-your own" system of
savage capitalism that — like an unstoppable cancer — invades the
roots of U.S. society.
My
feeling of gratitude toward Hillary has a more personal tone,
however. In mid-2005, I was an active soldier in the U.S. Army, back
from Iraq after one year’s service as a combat medic.
When my
tour of duty ended, I found that the Bush administration had
tightened the restrictions on family trips to Cuba the previous year,
a fact that prevented me from visiting my two children in Havana.
Neither my condition as a veteran nor the eventuality that one of my
children might be gravely ill in a Cuban hospital enabled me to get a
humanitarian permit to visit Cuba upon my return from the Middle
East.
I am
grateful to Hillary because she, along with about 60 other senators,
voted "yes" when legislation was drafted to solve my
problem and similar others and to establish a mechanism that might
allow humanitarian trips to Cuba.
In the
end, the amendment, which needed 75 percent of the Senatorial vote,
did not get the required majority, but from that day on Hillary has
occupied a special place in my heart.
I was
therefore discomfited when, as the U.S.-Cuba topic entered the
campaign debate some days ago, the New York senator assumed an
attitude rather inconsistent with her past voting record and what we
believe are his ethical and human values.
Suddenly,
we saw an unknown Hillary who vowed not to move a finger and to
maintain the status quo in
the United States’ position toward Cuba. Her stance was in total
dissonance with that of most of her fellow candidates for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
After
the dismay and the initial amazement felt by those of us who have
been victim of the present policy and struggle daily to change it,
those of us who see in Hillary and any other progressive candidate a
reason for hope in the search for a solution to the wrongs of so many
years, after all that, the questions came up.
What was
the reason for the senator’s position? we wondered. What lay behind
an attitude that diverges not only from the line of the party to
which she belongs but also from the growing tendency of the
Cuban-American electorate to refocus the United States’ policy
regarding Cuba?
Because
the most recent surveys on this topic show that a majority of
Cuban-Americans would support a lifting of the travel restrictions to
Cuba and direct talks with the Havana government, we couldn’t
conceive that the New York senator could assume a stance so different
from that which common sense and decency dictate.
Could it
be that the once valiant Hillary, who in the past had broken so many
lances against giant windmills representing special interests, was
now following in the steps of most of the mediocre candidates who
preceded her and had chosen to walk down the well-trod paths and
repeat the empty phrases that flow from the mouths of politicians
when they campaign on the streets of Little Havana every four years?
Had she
decided — for fear of unleashing the furies of a minority but
powerful segment of our community, and to the detriment of the people
of Cuba and the United States — to opt for the mediocre and
conventional stance and reject what many of us believe are her values
and principles?
Was she
perhaps advised not to antagonize a reduced sector of the Cuban exile
community that has shown it can change the results of ballot boxes
(it did in the past) and has turned the U.S. electoral process into
that of a classic banana republic?
If
Hillary Clinton’s objective was to gain the support of this
hyper-conservative and fanatical sector, I fear her efforts will not
be crowned by success.
Nothing
the wife of former President Bill Clinton can do — and nothing any
of the Democratic candidates may do — will convince the reduced and
elderly bloc of hardline Cuban-Americans to vote for them. This small
group votes for the Republican Party; if it cannot, it doesn’t.
I should
not like to end this pseudo analysis without mentioning a fact that
could be revealing of the way Mrs. Clinton really thinks about the
topic of Cuba and the ultraconservative Cuban-Americans she seems to
be courting now.
In
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s autobiography, "Living
History," published
four years ago, there is a passage that illustrates how afraid the
possible future president is of some elements in the Cuban community
in the United States, specifically the most retrograde and fanatical
sector.
The
events described in the book took place during a trip by the
then-First Lady to South Africa in the mid-1990s. The reason for the
trip was the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela.
Hillary
says that one of the challenges during the afternoon of inauguration
day was the presence of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Learning that
Fidel wanted to meet Hillary, U.S. State Department advisers told the
First Lady that she should avoid at all costs a meeting with the
Cuban leader, because diplomatic relations between the two countries
did not exist. "You may not shake his hand," they told her.
"You may not speak to him."
The
candidate tells that during the whole evening she looked for the
Cuban leader’s gray beard in the sea of dignitaries from various
countries. Suddenly, she saw Fidel Castro walking toward her.
Hillary’s reaction, according to her memoirs, was to hide in a corner
of the room to avoid the encounter.
In the
same paragraph, she admits that she felt ridiculous because of the
attitude she had assumed. She adds that even if she had run into
Fidel by accident, the anti-Castroites in Florida "would have
gone for my jugular."
Is there
anything more to say? I ask. As the Spanish saying goes: "Once a
confession is made, the case is closed."
fter
reading this chapter of her autobiography, who would doubt that the
First Lady would have preferred a dialogue to the embarrassing role
she was obliged to perform?
It is
also clear how important to the priorities of the national policy it
was not to "offend" the Cuban-born extremists in South
Florida.
Today,
more than 13 years after that unfortunate incident, we would not like
to see Senator Hillary Clinton repeat her ridiculous performance in
South Africa, as she fled from Castro. Her actions, or lack of
actions, at that time led to nothing good in terms of the relations
between the two countries.
Likewise,
taking opportunist positions to please a group, a fanatical sector of
the Cuban émigré community, to the detriment of the
genuine interests of most Americans, will lead to nothing positive.
Compelled
by my admiration and respect for her, I present to her — as a humble
bit of advice — a sort of poem I read many years ago, when I was a
15-year-old high school student in Havana.
Perhaps
(and hopefully) it will help Hillary to put into perspective the
worth of her alliance, real or imaginary, with a minute group of
voters i.e., fanatic extremists of Cuban origin.
Apropos
of the events that have motivated this note to my esteemed Mrs.
Clinton, the author of the epigram, the Cuban poet Rafael
Alcides, would have quipped the following:
Pacts
between crooks and gentlemen don’t work,
and
lead the gentleman to jail.
The
crook will never become a gentleman,
but
the gentleman ends up becoming a crook.
Cuban-American
Carlos Lazo is an activist for the lifting of the travel restrictions
to Cuba. An Army veteran and combat medic, he lives in Seattle,
Washington.
