<div dir="ltr">Milton et al.,<div><br></div><div>Good to see you resurface, MM :-) Oh "Lawd"! What trouble have I got myself into???</div><div>A reminder on context... I'm not in Bali. We received a note from one of us leading the CS organizing in Bali that the dynamic in the i orgs was essentially a power grabbing one, tech vs. govt-centric (was not clear where the non-tech CS fits in all that.) Then we see another person response asking (as I understood it then, but this has been corrected since) whether CS shouldn't feel okay with that. So what I was reacting to, basically, is the over simplification you're denouncing which precisely, IMHO, leads to believe that "govts are so evil that just kicking them out of the tent (and replacing them by tech or whoever, for that matter) would resolve our problems." I didn't defined the terms of the discussion. But since it was reportedly about tech (and)(vs) govt, I sought to (or at least I thought I was trying) to bring some nuance in the discussion by saying on the one hand govt is not all evil, may be useful to something and on the other tech does not have solution for everything, can get it wrong. That's not finger pointing or over simplified categorization. If anyone thought I was bashing the tech community, please amend the record --that's just not who I am. But I'm ready to tell them, no single stakeholder group is perfect or can get it right by itself, and we need to do this together. Actually, if you ask me, I believe we are more capable of effecting change if tech and CS would work intelligently together, as opposed to being anti-tech. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Now regarding the history lesson, yeah I learned a couple of things about the history of the 20th century in junior high, in senior high, and had read quite a bit about it at least for years into college, thank you! For some of us in Africa, even our parents or grand parent also fought in the 2 big wars that shaped that century, particularly the WW2 in order to liberate France and stem the tide of Nazism taking over UK. I guess that might have been a good reason to justify those episodes in far-away lands being featured so prominently in our curricula. So yes, I know a couple of things about Pearl Harbor, the Manhattan Project and its result, Japan devastated and Europe in ruins, the Marshall Plan, the Malta conference and the beginning of the saga of the United Nations and related specialized organizations, led by... the United States. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Let me just add this. The notion of HR was not new... English revolutions... the French revolution... and the US founding fathers tapping into the same ideas to shape their constitution... WW2 was the opportunity to make those ideas universal, and the only large country that was standing tall then, with a newly found unique power on the world stage as a consequence of the war -- the US -- did just that and that was a good thing. And guess what, they didn't do it by calling for another revolution (I guess the war was enough) or for a multistakeholder summit with CS and others. It was with its attributes and power as nation-state that the US was able to "ram the UDHR down to everyone's throats," particularly the other governments' and get them to sign a treaty! Can you believe that? An international treaty, something that only sovereign governments sign into a legal instrument. Now, I think the USG has always been one of the smartest we've had around the world, in abstraction of whether you are on their side or not (they just happen to do some dumb things once in a while, like any other governments many of whom do worse, but that's another story.) So I tend to believe they must have had some good reasons to spend their political capital on getting a treaty that included HRs, as opposed to say, making it just a plain, non-binding Declaration like in most previous historical occurrences. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Epilogue: I haven't re-read myself in the email you are responding to, but taking it from you MM, in my phrase "a world led by governments" referring to UDHR, the plural for "governments" was meant to be generic --not that all govts labored hard to give birth to UDHR as a gift to the world, but something like the following: an era where national sovereigns were mostly in charge of world affairs, the stage of world affairs was mainly organized around them. USG is a govt -- one of them -- and it did some good things in the aftermath of WW2. History didn't stop with the UDHR treaty however, and USG is not the only govt in history which has done something good about or with UDHR. I'm sure in the latter part of the 20th century, some govts who caught up with the whole idea might have used their clout or some leverage with weaker but less HR-friendly governments (for instance, the kind of govts that wouldn't mind opening the fire on their citizens/CS in the streets --does that ring a bell still in the 21st century?) in order to have them pay a little more regard to the HRs of their citizens. Hence, me saying govts (the ones which are so willing), with the power or clout that is only theirs, may also help "uphold" or respect HRs -- or whatever I wrote along those lines that made you jump off your chair, MM.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Sorry folks for the length of my response. It really is a tough thing to fully and accurately express what one means (as to avoid misunderstanding) while keeping it short, when the language in use doesn't soar from one's guts, i.e not one's natural first language. Bearing with this is part of the small price you have to pay for a relatively inclusive and diverse forum, to whatever degree, the highest price being borne by the writer. So are my explanations clear enough, MM, or should I put together a commercial a la Christine O'Donnell (the "I am not a witch" tea-partier) in order to claim "I am not a government idolater, nor am I an anti-techies"? </div>
<div><br></div><div>mawaki </div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Milton L Mueller <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mueller@syr.edu" target="_blank">mueller@syr.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div><br>
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<div>All</div>
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</div>
<div>It would be a mistake to let this discussion degenerate into categorizations of empty stakeholder abstractions: governments as "upholders of human rights" (cough!), technical community as good or bad, etc. <span style="font-size:10pt">This is one of
the truly silly things about the decision the I* organizations made to label the proper approach to Internet governance as "the multistakeholder model." As if there were "the" single model (there isn't), as if multistakeholderism actually described IETF (it
doesn't), as if the presence of multiple stakeholders in a process automatically means good, freedom and efficiency-enhancing governance (it doesn't). </span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Talking about "techies" - either pro or con - is just not helpful at this point. Same goes for claims regarding "civil society." Better to talk about specific values and objectives and how VERY SPECIFIC institutional mechanisms contribute to them, or not.
There is some legitimate space for concern about who is represented in meetings and decision making, and I very much do share Jeremy's concern about the I* organizations running away with the ball, but finger-pointing regarding stakeholder categories is pointless.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span style="font-size:10pt">A bit of a historical correction for you also, Mawaki. It was a world led by the _United States_ government that gave us the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not a world led by "governments." We rammed it down everyone's
throats, and anyway the formulation of and advocacy for rights comes from a vibrant civil society under certain kinds of constitutional regimes, not from states as states. The US had just won WW2, and had unparalleled hegemony over Europe, Japan and many other
parts of the world. It never would have happened otherwise. I don't think that lesson has any clear relevance to current discussions regarding IG, but if you think it does, perhaps you can explain in more detail.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:10pt"><br>
</span></div>
<div>--MM</div>
<div style="font-size:16px;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
<hr>
<div style="direction:ltr"><font face="Tahoma" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org" target="_blank">governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org</a> [<a href="mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org" target="_blank">governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org</a>] on behalf of Mawaki Chango [<a href="mailto:kichango@gmail.com" target="_blank">kichango@gmail.com</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, October 23, 2013 12:53 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Internet Governance; McTim<br>
<b>Cc:</b> Jeremy Malcolm; Bits <a href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net" target="_blank">bestbits@lists.bestbits.net</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime<br>
</font><br>
</div><div><div>
<div></div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">Thanks, Jeremy, for alerting us about what is going on with the "technical" community.
<div>Personally, I'm okay with moving the call for endorsement to 24hrs earlier --just as I agree with the need for more private/f2f strategizing.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>McTim, multistakeholder does not mean anti-governmentalism. Nor does it say the "technical community" takes over from government. It really means "on equal footing" etc., governments included, if you ask me. Furthermore, I do not think I have any track
record for celebrating governments, but I'll say this. In some circumstances, governments may be evil, but it was also a world led by governments which gave us the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related texts, which have served as formidable normative
tools for social progress. And sometimes, some of them put a stake into seeing those norms upheld. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Left to their own devices, techies don't necessarily have the best interest of the user at heart (I suspect Vint Cerf would agree with me since while opposing the notion that Internet is a HR, he suggested that designers could do a better job in making
the technology more HR-friendly, so to speak, in short.) While they do a lot of wonderful things --there's no denying that, not of my part anyway-- techies cannot write a clean and accurate user guide for... users! It is my sense that they are mostly impressed
with impressing their peers, as is often the case with minority groups of meritocrats. So yes, seeing "multistakeholderism" as the opportunity to shift from "government-centric" to "techno-centric" should be a matter of concern to CS --or to any plain citizen,
for that matter.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm just saying -- "on equal footing" my dear!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Mawaki <br>
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style="border-spacing:0px;border-collapse:separate;font-size:medium;font-family:'Times New Roman'"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial;font-size:small"> <br>
</span></span></div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 2:37 PM, McTim <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com" target="_blank">dogwallah@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
Jeremy,<br>
<div><br>
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 4:57 AM, Jeremy Malcolm <<a href="mailto:jeremy@ciroap.org" target="_blank">jeremy@ciroap.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> I haven't had a chance to write about the technical community meeting that<br>
> took place at lunchtime today, but it felt (to me) like an astonishing<br>
> power-grab in progress - they are forming a new coalition that will create a<br>
> "grassroots" campaign, with the pre-determined objective of reasserting the<br>
> primacy of "the" multi-stakeholder model against "government-centric"<br>
> models.<br>
<br>
</div>
CS should not have a problem with that, we should embrace it as it<br>
gives CS more clout than a Inter-gov model, no?<br>
<span><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
--<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
McTim<br>
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A<br>
route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel<br>
<br>
</font></span><br>
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