Child custody battles should not depend on religion or politics

As we think about the painful images of Elian Gonzalez being carried from his home by FBI agents, we should also recall the other high-profile international custody battle that has escalated during the past week.

In New York in March 1998, Gehan Mohamed Fathi Ali Ahmed, a 23-year-old Egyptian woman, married Yiannis Diamandis, a 29-year-old Greek man. The couple returned to Diamandis' home in Greece, and three months after the wedding, Gehan gave birth to the couple's first and only child.

But Gehan came from a strict Islamic family in Egypt. The conditions surrounding her marriage and motherhood were only marginally more offensive to her father and brother than the fact that Diamandis was an Orthodox Christian.

In an attempt to make amends with her father and brother, Gehan brought her husband and son to Alexandria, Egypt. The meeting did not begin well, as Gehan's brother Hani Mohamed Ali Ahmed later described her dress as "a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, which I wouldn't let a servant be seen in."

Gehan and Yiannis left their son in Alexandria, and Mohamed Ali Ahmed, Gehan's father, promised to bring him back to Greece a week later. Instead, Ahmed is currently holding the child, demanding that Gehan and Yiannis commit to raising their child as a Muslim. Though the couple formally renewed their wedding vows in Egypt in accordance with Muslim tradition, and though Diamandis converted to Islam in February, Gehan's father will not be satisfied until his son-in-law adopts a Muslim name and commits to raising the child as a Muslim.

Under Greek Orthodox tradition, the child will not be formally named until his baptism. His parents have considered naming him "Vassilis," while his grandfather calls him "Hani." In the meantime, the child has become the focus of high-level diplomacy and a public-relations war — Greek newspapers refer to him as "the Greek Elian."

So we have one young child living with an estranged branch of his family in Egypt. His parents have a legal right to custody, yet his grandfather passionately believes that the best thing for the child is to be raised in accordance with Islamic principles.

And we have Elian, a young child who had been living with an estranged branch of his family in the United States. His father has a legal right to custody, yet his Florida relatives — like many members of the Cuban-American community — believe that the best thing for him is to be raised in a democracy.

Of course, before we heartlessly conclude that Elian should be sentenced to life under Castro, it's only fair to consider the obvious argument. We know life under capitalism is better than life under communism, and we know that life in a strict, Islamic Arab household is worse than life under Christianity in the European Union.

While I would have to agree with the first statement, the second is indefensible. American misconceptions of Islamic and Arab tradition are numerous, and determining whether it is better to be brought up a Christian or a Muslim is a personal value judgment. Public opinion in the United States places Islam and communism at the bottom of the ideological barrel, and it is highly tempting to use ideology to justify Elian staying here and Vassilis returning to our Christian and European ally.

The thing is, none of this should really matter. It is not up to the United States or to anyone else to decide how Elian should live, and our judgment that life is better under capitalism than under communism is no more defensible than the Egyptian's judgment that life is better under Islam than under Christianity. Elian is a child who has lost his mother, and who has a father who still loves him. The United States lacks the legal and moral ground to deprive Juan Gonzalez of the opportunity to raise his son. Joe Dague is a politics major from Carlisle, Pa. He can be reached at joedague@princeton.edu.