It is very sarcastic to observe that hundreds of thousands of us are still on the dance floor. Certainly, many of us are still paying a fee that is going to hunt us back. We are simply dancing to our downfall, ululating and cheering to our shame and disregard. Do we actually realize how much money we are raising to keep the prisoners of conscience where they are? Do we understand by how long we are extending the life of a dictatorial regime committing grave crimes against humanity? Do we have any insight as to how many more of our fellow citizens will be thrown into jail using the ‘festival’ money that we, consciously or unconsciously, are raising?

The verbatim definition of a festival is “joyful celebration” which means that one has a jovial reason to rejoice. So, what do we, Eritreans, really have to cheer about at the moment while our country is bleeding? What moral reasons do we have in order to attend any government initiated or sponsored event such as the festival?

Over the past few days, the ‘festivals’ in Eritrea and Sweden have just been concluded and some more are still coming up in North America. The number of attendants has been reported to be disturbingly as close as 1 million. But, are we asking ourselves few vital queries before we march to the ‘festival’ gates? Why am I going? What am I getting from it? Whom am I pleasing? What if I don’t attend? What do I have to loose? Am I hurting anyone if I go? Who? Why? What is the right thing to do?

If you have humane answers to all the queries, then you may not be free to go and celebrate the festival in its authentic style. But if you decided to participate while your conscience is still blaming you for deliberately avoiding some or all of the aforementioned queries, then you have to reconcile with your inner self before you take the steps [if at all]. In fact, this is the perfect time to sit down and meditate the unanswered issue(s) being in the shoe of the ones whom your actions might be injuring. This is the perfect opportunity to shift the damage and assist the ones that you would otherwise have hurt and facilitate the collapse of the one that you would have wrongfully benefited.

Of course, one might argue that festival is a cultural event and has nothing to do with politics. One might claim ‘Even if I hate the PFDJ regime I can still attend the festival’. But we need to realize that the regime in Eritrea is playing an abstract game where every thing is entangled with political agenda. In other words, whatever you spend in the name of cultural or recreational event can be channeled to sponsor virtually anything that the government prefers including military projects, building prisons, purchasing detention containers, paying the salary of elite commanders and more repressive exercises. You, the ‘festival’ attendant, the sponsor, have no control over the flow of your currency; there is neither transparency nor accountability about the fund that you chose to raise for the reckless government.

Therefore, let us please stop attending fake festivals where there is no true joy and attachment with the system in power. Let us stop the paradox of dancing on the dance floor of the clique whom we tremendously complain about. Let us first reconcile with our inner self. Let us voice a true and persistent lamentation that does not reverse its tone when the ‘festival’ arrives. Let us stop providing weak reasons to be PFDJ tools. By the end of the day, we are only deceiving ourselves and hypocritically washing our hands as the Roman governor, Pilate, did in the biblical times. Let us use the spirit of festival to renew our obligation to fight for the respect of human rights and dignity in Eritrea. Let us revolt against the jungle rule that has prevailed in our country!

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[Dr. Yohannes T Ghebremariam is an active member of an independent civic movement Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (EMDHR). He is one of the representatives of the movement in the USA. He can be contacted via email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ]