The Fest: Crying out for protest poetry

Grahamstown has long been recognised as the host of one of the best arts festivals anywhere and for 10 days this quiet university town buzzes with theatre, dance, exhibitions and music.

This exhilarating festival is not something you drive to. It is something you drive into. It surrounds you. For 10 days, everywhere you turn, there's art and people enjoying art in all its forms. The buzz is phenomenal.

This year, the National Arts Festival turns 40 and takes place when the national sociopolitical temperature is rising. It will be interesting to see how the artistic community responds to the crises we face around corruption, raging consumerism and dire poverty.

The artistic community guards its freedoms jealously and there have been many mutterings that spaces for the arts are diminishing.

The Grahamstown Festival, like the town itself, has colonial origins. It began as a showcase for English culture in Africa and was basically a celebration of settler culture. But by the mid-'80s, it had become a rallying point for artists against apartheid.

Athol Fugard's plays were performed, Johannes Kerkorrel and the "alternative Afrikaans" movement wowed audiences. The festival was full of the cultural productions from the struggle era. After apartheid, the festival, like the country, opened up to the world and today it is able to celebrate art on a global scale while remaining rooted in the South African experience.

It has been argued that the festival has lost touch with the point at which progressive politics and culture meet, which famously shaped it in the '80s. And it does seem, from the programme, that there is not much connection with popular struggles this year.

However, one hopes there will be an alternative "festival of resistance" independent from the official programme, similar to what we have seen previously.

In the past, grassroots political and cultural activists from around South Africa ran an independent festival that included music, poetry, performance, graffiti workshops and political discussions. It is a pity that the festival of resistance takes place on the margins and without the financial support of the festival organisers.

I've always found the Grahamstown festival to be an oasis that stands for what South Africa could be - diverse, critical, creative and a lot of fun. It reminds us of the best of who we are.

I look forward to being in Grahamstown in a little over two weeks.

• Buccus is a research fellow in the School of Social Sciences at UKZN. The National Arts Festival is on from July 3-13. See www.nationalartsfestival.co.za