[governance] Fall ICANN meeting in Cairo - Rights discussion

[Vittorio Bertola]

Bret Fausett ha scritto:
> I believe in the power of making statements. I believe that making 
> statements about what is right and just is both good in and of itself 
> and sometimes has the power to create change for the better in the world.
> 
> The participants in ICANN ought to know that the presence of an ICANN 
> meeting in a host country is used by many inside that country as a sign 
> that they are doing something right. If Egypt, or any host country for 
> that matter, is filtering Internet access or otherwise abusing its 
> gateways to prevent or impair end-to-end communications between users of 
> the world, that is something that, in my view, ought to be publicized 
> and condemned. We ought not let the presence of an ICANN meeting be 
> misused, by those who would deny Internet access to others, as a symbol 
> that they are doing the right thing.
> 
> I don't know what the Internet in Egypt looks like, but I will certainly 
> investigate that before the Cairo meeting. Certainly filtering is not an 
> ICANN issue, but the celebration of the local Internet community always 
> accompanies an ICANN meeting. While I wouldn't necessarily expect ICANN, 
> as a corporation, to make any statements about the host community's 
> Internet policies and practices on filtering, I would applaud ICANN _as 
> a community_ for making a statement about what is right and just.

I may agree, but I would like to point out that slapping your host in 
the face in public at the very moment when he is extremely proud of 
hosting you and extremely nervous about the success of the event might 
not be the best way to convince him that he is doing something wrong, or 
to provoke a positive reaction.

I had a chance to visit Egypt a couple of months ago, as I was invited 
to speak at a conference there. I found not just impressive 
infrastructure, but also a group of young and committed people who are 
genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunities that ICTs open for them 
and for their country. Of course the local culture requires a certain 
number of taboos and (self-)censorships, but still, the discussions I 
had there in public were in many cases more open and modern than the 
ones I can have in Italy these days.

I noticed in Egypt promising seeds of a better future, but they can only 
grow if we let the Egyptians cultivate them until they are ripe. Freedom 
of expression, much like representative democracy, is a delicate and 
pervasive matter that requires deep cultural changes; you cannot impose 
it from the outside by giving orders (or by sending tanks). You can only 
keep the dialogue open, and encourage the society to evolve in the right 
direction, while at the same time understanding that not all cultures 
are the same and not all societies prioritize values in the same order; 
all in all, there might be peoples that actually and genuinely like to 
live in a society where freedom of expression is not unlimited.

I missed the discussion on the At Large list and I don't know the exact 
terms of the argument, but I suggest that it's not just unilateral 
statements from a group of temporary aliens that you need; an actual 
dialogue, in which you also learn from them the reasons why certain 
limits are being placed, might be more productive for both parts.
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------
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