This article is issued in the spirit of fairness and a broader notion of social justice in the arts, although it may seem an ideal that is hard to achieve in Botswana. Being an initiate of Augusto Boal`s Popular Theatre of the Oppressed and as a student of Paulo Freire’s literacy program, and having worked alongside one of Africa`s Popular Theatre Gurus; the late ideological NgugiWaMerii, I write to argue that fairness is a dynamic category that has to be continuously re-negotiated.As inthe words of the Fair Arts Almanac:“fairness is constantly in a precarious state if we don’t care for it as an ongoing practice. Fairness cannot be reached by structural changes alone. As it is based on mutual trust, it has to be in constant public discussion – aware and woke to current economic, social, and political developments. The revolution has to be continuous.” In light of this afore-statement, I am thus of the strongest conviction thatto perform its role in society, the arts sector needs to be aware of the injustices it reluctantly participates in or helps perpetuate and must develop strategies to avoid and counterbalance this tendency.
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