Message from Mirta Yáñez / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate

Dear Marilyn:

Thanks for sending me the three letters. I am completely in agreement with Desiderio and Arturo. Really, I had already begun to worry some months ago when I read the incoherent letter from Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera on the subject of “The Bridge,” which, because of the pathetic quality of some fragments, could be looked upon with scorn, and in fact I did.

In this letter he tried to justify some harmful actions of those low years, effectively, the previously mentioned “owed obedience.” And Guillermo said, darkly and someone shamefully, that one had to navigate in “these waters.” Many didn’t surrender their ethical principals nor did they agree to “navigate,” and it cost them dearly. Some of them cannot be with us (not even to feel nauseated as happened to me) like Ezequiel Vieta, for example. Yes, I think this nefarious, opportunistic and repressive thinking is still with us, and looking for every opportunity to appear.

So many shovelfuls of lime, and much was lost under them, the grains of sand still feel isolated, but they gladden the heart. Let us keep hoping that the pleasant will cover all the wounds of the unpleasant. And we will manage to live to celebrate.

Mirta Yáñez

January 10, 2007

Translated by Regina Anavy