[governance] Nitin Desai's two groups

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Jeremy and all,

  Seems to me that the IGF if it wishes to be effective needs
to step up to the plate and seek to achieve much more.  Sure
such represents a certain amount of risk.  Such is life!  Without
risk, there is no reward or achievement, only empty and meaningless
words of no significant consequence.  Be bold, or shuffle off to
oblivion...

Jeremy Malcolm wrote:

> I just touched on this at igfwatch.org, but I felt it was worth
> highlighting here too in view of the debate at last night's IGC
> meeting about whether we should on the one hand push the IGF to
> achieve more, or on the other hand stay quiet to avoid giving
> ammunition to the IGF's enemies.
>
> As you will guess it is my view that we would be doing civil society a
> disservice to stay quiet for fear of damaging what we have in the IGF
> as it already exists.  But what is more interesting than what I think
> is that Nitin Desai said during the opening ceremony.  In his view the
> contention over the appropriate role of the IGF is very much a live
> issue.  He stated:
>
> > essentially, this is a dialogue between two groups of people ... and
> > we must face up to that reality. On the one hand, we have a group of
> > people who feel that the present modalities of management of the
> > Internet are working, will work, even in the future, who are afraid
> > that any major change in the way in which these arrangements are set
> > up would compromise the Internet in some form. And on the other
> > hand, we have a lot of people who are dependent on the Internet for
> > their activities, for the economic, social, political, whatever, who
> > feel that they have to have a say in the public policy issues which
> > affect how the Net runs in this manner. These are essentially the
> > two groups who are in dialogue here.
>
> So if we were to leave this campaign half-finished and concede it to
> the group who are satisfied with the status quo of Internet
> governance, in some sense that would be the end of the dialogue that
> Nitin Desai describes, leaving it as a self-satisfied monologue of
> powerful governments and private sector actors.  In that case, what
> purpose does the IGC see itself as serving?
>
> --
> JEREMY MALCOLM
> Project Coordinator
> CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL-KL OFFICE
> for Asia Pacific and the Middle East
>
> Consumers International (CI) is the only independent global
> campaigning voice for consumers. With over 220 member organisations in
> 115 countries, we are building a powerful international consumer
> movement to help protect and empower consumers everywhere. For more
> information, visit www.consumersinternational.org.
>
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Regards,

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