[bestbits] To 1Net or Not to 1Net, let's be clear on the question

[parminder]

On Sunday 12 January 2014 12:47 AM, Ian Peter wrote:
> The distinction we need to make here is between 1net being a conduit 
> to submit CS names (the current case) and 1net deciding the CS names 
> (which has not been proposed)
>
> I would be joining a mass protest if the latter was the case, but it 
> isn't. I personally have no great problem with 1net as a conduit if 
> that is what the Brazil organisers want. Not a big enough issue IMHO. 
> And I think that is where most of the groups mentioned below (if not 
> all) stand.
>
> But yes, if that is not the case, let's clear it up on our lists.

Ian/ All

I do not think that civil society should alone shoulder the complete 
burden of political naivete and pussy-footing in an environment rife 
with deep strategic intentions and plans, and the implementation 
thereof..... Now, I cant have much against those who are thus in a 
deeply strategic mode. They have their political objectives, about which 
they must be convinced are the right ones, and are keen on achieving 
them, with all  effort, resources, brains and so on.. But they are 
certainly not into being naive and pussy-footing...

Civil society represents the interests of the most marginalised... It 
has no right to sacrifice them at the altar of either laziness or 
political naivete and pussy-footing, and stepping back limply every time 
someone pushes us... But that is exactly what we are doing here all the 
time....

Whether it is the recent WIPO treaty negotiations in Marrakesh on access 
to published works for the disabled or the issue of right to food 
security at the even more recent WTO meeting at Bali, it is often civil 
society groups and individuals who anticipate moves of those opposed to 
progressive causes, strategize counter moves, join up tactically with 
actors that can help and so on.... They are not sitting around waffling 
and being pushed and shoved around by  the powerful... Which I am sorry 
to say is what the global Internet governance civil society is doing 
right now... And this cannot be excused. We must stand up to our 
responsibility.. I exhort all right thinking people here to pull up 
their socks, look around to see what is happening, and make their 
strategies and act on them - they owe it to the cause of the people who 
cannot be here to fight for their rights..

Now, one can recognise that there are indeed people here who are 
comfortable to accept and accommodate the 'push', and the directions 
from where the push is coming, because they consider such accommodation 
as going well with their specific political objectives .. Very fine... 
These are politically critical times, and to be strategic is just what 
is needed... What I have a big problem with, however,is with those who 
profess that they dont want this rather forceful - almost violent - push 
to be accommodated, which has reconfigured global IG related civil 
society, at least with regard to the Brazil meeting, and as per the best 
hopes of those involved, for ever afterwards.... But then they simply do 
nothing about it.

The time for such procrastination is over... This is  a key political 
juncture for the global civil society involved with IG, and to not do 
anything now is as much a strong political act as to do something... And 
therefore we must decide the political act we want to do - have the 
global IG related civil be organised under an ICANN umbrella, or 
preserve our independent status, and independent channels of decision 
making and having relationships with powerful outside actors...

1Net was conceived by ICANN 
<http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/documents/resolutions-17nov13-en.htm> 
with a specific political purpose, as a part of a composite, 
well-resourced, strategy. (I suspect that there is active collusion in 
this regard with the US establishment but if some others want to exclude 
this consideration, my argument still stands. BTW Fadi did indicate 
something at Bali to the effect that US knew about the approach he was 
making to President Rousseff. And since this approach was a part of a 
composite plan, I would think US knew about the whole plan. 1Net 
included... Often saying that so-and-so had a 'prior knowing about 
something' is a polite, controversy-avoiding, way of saying that 
so-and-so was a part of the plan. This is especially likely since ICANN 
cannot go around suggesting so seriously that some give-away in terms of 
some kind of internationalisation of ICANN may be afoot, without the US 
being a part of most if not all of it. But ignore this part if you want 
to. Lets take it that 1NEt is simply a part of ICANN's well thought out 
and implemented strategic plan.)

Everything that was expected from 1Net has gone as per the plan, 
including the civil society playing along extremely nicely.

The final strategic intent of the plan - well, excuse me my right to do 
my 'political thinking' and strategic fore-sight, even if tentative - in 
my reckoning, is to develop a common position among the 1Net 
stakeholders and present it as the 'global community's voice', and force 
Brazilians, from that 'position of strength', to do compromises in terms 
of final meeting outcomes that protects and furthers the power of many 
elements of the status quo. (Will expand on this some other time.) It is 
as a part of these 'negotiations' that perhaps/ likely an already ready 
proposal of giving in something on US government's oversight role will 
be offered. I expect this proposal to be somewhat weak, perhaps, giving 
ICANN direct power to change the root, and not much more. I dont expect 
legal internationalisation of ICANN. But lets see. And in exchange of 
such a relatively weak proposal some major give-aways will be sought in 
terms of the current Brazilian position on the directions towards which 
global Internet governance mechanism must move. Some European 
governments will get into the picture as well. All with good intention 
and for a good cause, certainly. Of course, many things remain 
unclear... But this in my reckoning is the general plan or outlook. I 
may be wrong.

Now apart from having an extremely strategic, well-laid out plan towards 
the outcome stages of the Brazil and a controlled outcome from it, it is 
some kind of  a by-product that the global civil society will be 
disfigured - in being arranged primarily under the ICANN umbrella - for 
the purpose of the Brazilian meeting. As per the best intentions of the 
planners, such disfigurement of civil society could in fact be made 
permanent. Indeed, other than some initial hiccups, like that letter 
which four networks wrote in Bali - something which is actively being 
sought to be undone now - their plan vis a vis civil society have been 
going extremely well. The developing outcomes may even have exceeded 
their expectations.

Normally we should have safe civil society spaces where we could discuss 
such possible scenarios and strategies of powerful actors just among 
ourselves . But we all know we have lost such safe spaces, if they ever 
occurred, and global civil society in the IG space is being practically 
run over....

I  still have great hopes from the Brazil meeting, which I think will 
provide some major breakthroughs. I wished to avoid openly assessing the 
strategy of some groups in this way, which I admit does reduce mutual 
trust. But I see the involved civil society groups looking like entirely 
losing their bearing. To me, the danger is the very survival of IG civil 
society as an independent entity, and this is too important an 
imperative which needed to be addressed urgently, whereby I just needed 
to write the above note. I may say here once again that all actors, 
convinced of their righteousness of positions and objectives, as they 
must be, have a right to be smart and strategic.... My note is really 
not so much about attributing bad motives to other actors, as it to try 
and wake up civil society to what it itself needs to do -being similarly 
smart and strategic......


parminder


>
> Ian Peter
>
> -----Original Message----- From: William Drak
> Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2014 5:49 AM
> To: Jeanette Hofmann
> Cc: Best Bits
> Subject: [bestbits] To 1Net or Not to 1Net, let's be clear on the 
> question
>
> Hi
>
> +1 Yes, and as I said previously whether on BB or governance (hard to 
> remember the difference), coming on the heels of the riotous caucus 
> meeting, those of us who didn’t agree with what the others were saying 
> really were not itching to start another high drama argument.
>
> What happened in Bali should stay in Bali.  It’s two months later, a 
> lot has changed or been clarified, so if the IGC, BB, IRP, and APC 
> still do not accept the process the Brazilians have once again asked 
> everyone to follow, please let’s reaffirm these decisions through open 
> discussions and rough consensus, pronto.  And if the members (or in 
> the case of BB, subscribers) decide they still don’t want to be part 
> of the process and will attempt to liaise and submit names directly to 
> the LOG, I hope they will also clarify what functions they want their 
> representatives on the 1net Steering Committee to perform, and by 
> extension how the SC reps of non-rejecting CS networks are supposed to 
> interface with them, 1net and the LOG.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bill
>
>
> On Jan 11, 2014, at 6:01 PM, Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
>
>> +1
>>
>>
>> Am 11.01.14 14:58, schrieb Avri Doria:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I was in the very crowded rooms for those very short meetings in Bali
>>> that some people may not have been able to get into.  And lets not
>>> forget there was not remote participation in those meetings. Lets not
>>> call anything that happened in those meetings as 'Civil Society 
>>> decided'
>>>
>>> I do not remember these decision as being decisions for all time.  I
>>> remember the leaders of the room getting passive agreement to beginning
>>> the work by approaching the the Brazilians and getting the ball 
>>> rolling.
>>>  I do not remember a decision 'we will not work through the /1net on
>>> the Brazilian meeting".
>>>
>>> There were no consensus decisions, by any known definition of 
>>> consensus,
>>> to avoid working through the /1net for all things related to Brazilian
>>> meeting.  At that point, it was still too early to make that sort of
>>> decision.  And we were not a civil society congress that could have 
>>> made
>>> such a decision.
>>>
>>> Because we are blessed to have some very strong CS Brazilians in our
>>> midst, those leading the effort at that point were able to get 
>>> agreement
>>> for 4 liaisons to get the ball rolling.
>>>
>>> I might ad that despite the abuse some of these liaisons are getting at
>>> the moment, they have done well at getting us information before any 
>>> was
>>> available on a formal basis.  We should be grateful for the work they
>>> did and thanks then for their service.  Yes, the organizers could have
>>> given them greater access to what was going on, but at least one of 
>>> them
>>> is definitely in the the center of things.
>>>
>>> I want to make it clear that I favor the effort to use /1net as the
>>> aggregation point for the non-governmental stakeholders (however we
>>> group stakeholders) for the Brazilian effort.  Beyond, lets see how 
>>> they
>>> do.  As broad as the coalition of IGC/BB, Diplo, APC and NCSG may 
>>> appear
>>> to those of us in this bubble, it is not broad enough to cover civil
>>> society as a whole.  We are just the early participants in an effort
>>> that has to expand.  A setup like /1net where CS has a full set of 
>>> seats
>>> on the steering group seems like a better way to allow ALL 
>>> interested CS
>>> stakeholders to be able to get involved.
>>>
>>> avri
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11-Jan-14 06:58, William Drake wrote:
>>>>
>>>> To be clear, lest my harping on it be misconstrued, I don’t care if 
>>>> IGC,
>>>> Best Bits (which is mostly IGC people, but no members per se), and
>>>> whomever else Anja is referring to (APC?) decide to stick with the
>>>> position taken in Bali if they feel nothing has changed and the entire
>>>> 1Net enterprise is forever tainted by the original sin of the TC
>>>> initiating it.  But if so, I would like a)  to know that this is
>>>> confirmed decision of those networks and not just the view of a few
>>>> people in the heated environment of Bali, and b) for the 
>>>> representatives
>>>> of those networks to please say “my network” don’t support 1Net 
>>>> playing
>>>> this role rather than “civil society” doesn’t support 1Net playing 
>>>> this
>>>> role, as the latter is really unfair to the networks that don’t agree,
>>>> and it has caused confusion among other stakeholders requiring 
>>>> repeated
>>>> explanations of CS’s internal dynamics and who favors x or y, etc.
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>
> ***********************************************
> William J. Drake
> International Fellow & Lecturer
>  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
>  University of Zurich, Switzerland
> Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency,
>  ICANN, www.ncuc.org
> william.drake at uzh.ch (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com (lists),
> www.williamdrake.org
> ***********************************************
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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