Nancy Morejón

By Roberto Morejón
 
When the echoes of the harassment by extremists of the Cuban musical duo Buena Fe during the fulfillment of their commitments in Spain had not yet died down, the poet Nancy Morejon, invited to France, was the latest victim of attacks.
 
The essayist and translator was awarded this year the honorary presidency of the Poetry Market, an event founded in 1983, a meeting point in Paris for writers, publishers and publications.
 
With Nancy Morejon's prolix and significant work, her invitation to the City of Light was more than guaranteed, but the devious hand of Cuba-averse fanatics got in the way of the original program of the cultural event.
 
The intellectual plans to give lectures on Caribbean poetry, but that laudable purpose is opposed by those who try to defame her and divert attention from the role played by Morejon in the cultural life of her country.
 
The French Pen Club and some of its followers, among them a person of Cuban origin living in the European country since the 1960s, have used poet Nancy Morejon as the target of their expletives and epithets coming from the ultra-right and frenzied liturgy.
 
The Union of Writers and Artists, cultural institutions and friends of the illustrious poetess came out to defend her personality and work, recognized inside and outside the largest of the Antilles.
 
As it happened with the Buena Fe duo and previously with members of popular orchestras and singers based in Cuba who tried to perform in Miami, these exponents of art and literature become the target of attacks.
 
And so it happens for staying in their country, giving themselves to their people and reviving and preserving the cultural heritage of the nation.
 
The verbal aggressions against the former director of the Center for Caribbean Studies of the Havana institution Casa de las Americas are an attempt to frighten all creators living in Cuba.
 
For the obstinate ones, there is only one way of thinking and acting, the one they hold up, and those who do not subordinate themselves are at the center of what experts rightly call a "cultural war" against the largest of the Antilles.  
 
It would be a mistake if they think that with their hatred and even physical aggression, as happened in Spain with Buena Fe, they will stop the natural exchange of the exponents of art and literature from the land of Jose Marti with the rest of the world.