Summary of ways to participate in Best Bits

parminder parminder at itforchange.net
Tue Oct 16 23:38:21 EDT 2012


"To give you a feel of what I am talking about - I will like to put 
democratic before multistakeholder in any procedural document on IG - 
which btw is meant to cover local to national to global levels. " 
/Parminder /

  "Your dislike of multistakeholderism is duly noted.... " /Bill Drake/

Bill

I keep hoping that you will give up this kind of mischievous distortion 
of what I say/ write, especially since, when I give you the appropriate 
response you are apt to jump and say things like 'i am done with this 
discussion'.

So, you really think I am expressing dislike of multistakeholderism when 
I say that 'democratic' should go before 'multistakeholderism' in any 
governance procedural document, right. Ok, in that case, I dislike 
multistakeholderism, because my primary adherence is indeed to 
democracy. If anyone is either saying that mentioning democracy effects 
multistakeholderism, or even that democracy does not stand at a higher 
pedestal than multistakeholderism, as you clearly suggest, then i would 
gladly give up that particular version of multistakeholderism. (I 
however think that multistakeholderism is an expression of participatory 
aspects and processes of democracy, but you manifestly dont seem to 
think so.)

In the circumstances, I would also be right to say; well, Bill, your 
dislike of democracy is duly taken note of. I am indeed very 
disconcerted with an increasing expression of doubts and dislikes about 
democracy that I see in the IG space. Before we, at IT for Change, fight 
anything, we will address and fight that.

parminder





On Tuesday 16 October 2012 06:02 PM, William Drake wrote:
> Hi Parminder
>
> Greetings from ICANN Toronto, where some of us are trying to push the 
> inclusion of human rights in actual governance processes.
>
> On Oct 16, 2012, at 6:46 AM, parminder wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, if we just want to give a list of preachments to 
>> the ITU on how should be conduct its business, I am game for it. That 
>> is much more doable.
>
> I certainly hope this is not what we'll do in the WCIT statement. 
>  Statements critiquing the ITU's MO proved useful earlier in the 
> process, e.g. by pressing governments to agree to the landmark, 
> watershed, historic (quoting the press office) release of a document 
> that had already been leaked and widely accessed.  If you know the 
> zeitgeist in tower, this was news.  And more generally, those 
> statements made senior staff who'd previously declared they'd be 
> unaffected by any muttering among the riff raff launch an 
> unprecedented counter-offensive perception management gambit, complete 
> with a Twitter "storm" (tee hee) and website telling critics that 
> their concerns are all myths.  So all good.
>
> What's needed now though is something different—less meta, more 
> focused on specific aspects of Dubai.  There's a proposal that the 
> conference chair declare some sessions open to the public.  One 
> imagines there will be push back from the usual suspects; it'd be good 
> to briefly make the case.  Beyond this, I'd hope we can focus on the 
> concrete proposals that could be problematic for the Internet and 
> offer substantive counterpoints.  Ideally, these should acknowledge 
> that in some cases governments may have real legitimate concerns, but 
> point out the downsides of overreach and that there are other, more 
> effective ways to deal with them than via a multilateral treaty on 
> telecom. In other words, be positive in tone and content.  If we do 
> that, at least some delegations might have a look before tossing the 
> responses to the ITU's public comment call into the trash, and that 
> would establish another reference point for delegates carrying similar 
> messages.  BTW, such a statement could also feed into the CIR main 
> session in Baku, which will discuss WCIT issues.
>
> As to the other statement, I don't believe that focusing on the 
> procedural elements would be unproductive and of less value than a 
> more substantive statement, which I suspect would prove a bit 
> difficult to break new and consensual ground on.  Your dislike of 
> multistakeholderism is duly noted, but among the wider community of IG 
> mavens the procedural aspects have consistently proven easier to reach 
> consensus on, not only within CS, but with other stakeholders as well. 
>  This was demonstrated throughout WSIS and the IGF's early years.  And 
> the good work done by APC and partners on this has not been fully 
> amplified and leveraged, and there's never been more of a need to be 
> saying such things.  One need look no further than the WCIT and the 
> London Process to see why.  Such a statement can feed in directly to 
> the Taking Stock and Way Forward main session.  So I'd go with the 
> model this group has worked out through collaboration facilitated by 
> Jeremy, rather than toss it aside.
>
> Best,
>
> Bill

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