ELIAN.off topic

[Mark Story]

I found this an interesting comment. I was talking about this topic last
week with a Cubana friend of mine. She said that the extreme position of
both sides is due in a large part to "el Santerismo" or Santeria, a
spiritistic religion with African animist roots. Both sides (including
Fidel) view the boy as a "profeta" due to his "miraculous" survival of the
tragic voyage ( the dolphins and all that). They are fighting over him
because they believe his presence brings good luck. One of the TV reports on
this showed a group of the Santarismos conducting rituals only a block away
from the house where the boy was being held. Fidel in particular is
concerned over his physical survival, since he is 73 years old. To me, this
explained a lot of the fanaticism - that and the always reliable
nationalism.

Mark Story, RPT
Eastern Washington University
Cheney, Washington

> jurisdiction and his father's entitlements. Much as the Miami ex-Cuban
> community and its sympathizers would like to turn this into a
> Moses-in-the-bullrushes miracle, it is nothing more or less than a simple
> re-patriation, the fate which Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and
> Haitians (all of them fleeing far worse tyrants than Castro) routinely
> face.
>
> Bill Ballard, RPT
> New Hampshire Chapter, PTG