Elian: Living talisman

Ever since the the little boy Elian Gonzalez was abruptly returned to fidel, the old dictator has treated him as a sort of magical being. Actually, as the pawn, a mascot that is supposed to represent and bring along a whole generation of future revolutionaries and thus preserve its future. But the future does not look that clear.

Next month, Cuba will celebrate Castro's 80th birthday, with thousands attending the party for the world's longest-serving leader. Next to him on the podium in Havana will be the 12-year-old who embodies his hopes for saving the revolution.

So Elian's life is not so different than the normal Cuban citizen, he is guarded, and watch by castro lackeys. As a symbol of the future of Cuba it about time that fidel goes ahead and trademarks Elian, just to avoid embarassing fights later on as to who owns the rights to Elianworld.

He (Elian) is a heavily guarded boy, always shadowed by state security officers. He is also a privileged child, the only boy in Cuba whose birthday party is attended by President Fidel Castro. He is also a symbol of the island's resistance to the power of the US, a symbol that Cuba will stand up for itself, its children and its revolution.

His future is not his own.

The battle for Elian has now been won in every sense. 'He is a very good humble boy and very responsible, very disciplined,' one of his schoolmates told The Observer. 'Well, he has to be, as he is friends with our Commander-in-Chief [Castro].' He has become one of the town's five leaders of the pioneros [pioneers], an organisation that, according to the President, is the 'school where children prepare themselves for life' by 'ratifying the irrevocability of the socialist character of our revolution'.

Elian is becoming a model of what the next generation of Cuban revolutionaries should be. But the battle for Elian's contemporaries is still being fought.A few blocks away from the school, some of them recount a joke that ends with the naughtiest boy in one class being sent home as punishment for saying that Fidel has to be buried in Jerusalem. 'Oh boy, not in Jerusalem!' exclaims his grandmother. 'Don't you know that people there rise again after three days?'

Read more of the story written by Andres Schipani-Aduriz in Cardenas, and published on the British publication The Observer.