The annual National Arts Festival held in Grahamstown is huge and goes by the tagline - 10 days of amazing! I have been an irregular visitor to this festival since about 1999. There is always a belwildering array of things to see. I don't usually find art exhibitions and dance that interesting and so I limited my interests to mostly drama, discussion sessions (at the Thinkfest) and music. I wanted to kick off my viewing pleasure with Marikana, a musical drama about the plight of mineworkers in that fateful Lonmin mine. Unfortunately it did not open on the day (I don't know why). We were just told that it was postponed. I ended up at the Thinkfest where local government issues were discussed. Of course the issues there were familiar: corruption, lack of accountability, cadre deployment, blah blah blah. No doubt it was a serious session chaired by Eusebius McKaiser. Panelists included Dr Nomalanga Mkhize (Rhodes scholar) and Lechesa Tsenoli Deputy speaker of the National Assem...