To most Eritreans, the festival is just an excuse to party; it is an opportunity to congregate with Eritreans and get a taste of Eritrea in exile.  It is an occasion for our foreign-born and foreign-raised children to know and learn about their roots.   This is laudable�if only that was the intent of the party sponsoring the event.  But we know otherwise. 

***image1***The alleged purpose of the PFDJ Festival that is scheduled for this weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area is to promote �nation building and cultural revival.� In reality, the �festival� has only two purposes: (1) it is yet another tool for PFDJ to empty the wallets of Eritreans and (2) it intends to keep distract the hearts and minds and consciences of Eritreans from concentrating on the daily abuse of the ruling regime. 

Like all authoritarian systems, the PFDJ is an obstacle, and not a promoter, to �cultural revival.�   A culture, according to social scientists, is a people�s �arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, inventions, language, technology, and values.�  A government that destroys traditional institutions and discourages new institution-building, a government that mocks Eritreans� cherished values of fairness and justice; a government that declares some forms of worship as legal and others as illegal; a government that arrests writers; a government that enslaves musicians cannot claim to be promoting �cultural revival.�  The only culture it encourages is its own culture of domination, arrogance and exclusion.  This culture should be shunned, not revived.  

Having sold bonds on promises it can�t keep; having sold land it doesn�t own; having sold stocks on companies that don�t provide reports or get audited; having sold citizenships to foreigners; having sold membership to a political club that has no bylaws; having become a money-trading post and, in short, having dominated Eritrea�s entire economy, the PFDJ is looking for novel ways to part you from your money.  The �festival� is a new way for PFDJ to empty your wallet.   

The PFDJ also wants to create a �feel good� distraction to cover up its monumental blunders, mismanagement and poor judgment.    What does the PFDJ have to show in its ten-year record?  It cannot claim to have improved the sense of security or the quality of life of Eritreans.  During its misrule, they have been in declared and undeclared states of war with neighboring nations.  Every Eritrean has a friend or a family member who is arrested, without charge, by the government.  The government writes and ignores constitutions; it sets and cancels timelines for elections and, with a million Eritreans facing starvation, it sets conditions for aid.  Your attendance encourages it in its bad behavior.  If you want to change its bad habits, then stop giving it money to get its fix.  

Say no to a regime that will use your attendance as a propaganda tool in the state-owned media, to send one message to the jailed, abused, terrorized Eritreans in Eritrea: �You Are Alone!  Eritreans in America love their government!�  Eritreans can still party; we can still get together with family and friends at parks, at social gatherings and at our houses of worship.  But we the people do not need the PFDJ, with all its luggage, to revive our culture.  To the PFDJ, we the people are no more than children and the festival is no more than a lollipop candy.  It is meant to keep us quiet and distract us. This weekend, we invite Eritreans to say: