[governance] Re: SECOND DRAFT statement on enhanced cooperation

[Mawaki Chango]

Hi,

Wolfgang, so in those examples of progress on EC you gave, where is the CS?
Is the implication that in those formalizations of bilateral relationships
between organizations, ICANN carries the voice of CS? Or is something in the
works to bring the public party CS (ie, NGOs and their coalitions such as
IGC) into those arrangements?

McTim, I couldn't even believe that you went there when I read your quoting
of the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.
You certainly don't believe that it still decribes anything near the reality
of government role and capabilities vis-a-vis the cyberspace *today*, do
you?! If you don't, as I'm inclined to believe, then I'm trying to
understand what else is being communicated here. (See below my commentary
about the whole anti-government slogan.)

I read Parminder's "counter-proposal" (just to distinguish... or "alternate
proposal") as a possible detailing of the last option under paragraph 2 in
the "Second draft statement on enhanced cooperation" which started this
thread:

* establishing a new umbrella governance institution for Internet policy
development, with space for the participation of each stakeholder group in
its respective role.

Now some may prefer not to commit to a specific preference or set of
preferences (and it seems like that's what the proposed draft is doing,
limitting itself to the broad level description or to the listing of all
different types/models one can reasonably think of) - while some others may
want to indicate a specific preference or set of preferences with the most
likelihood to foster a progressive agenda.

I would rather support the latter.

That being said, Parminder has written either too much or too little :) By
that I mean I'm not sure whether it is necessary to get to the detail of the
exact composition/membership etc, in this statement. If that were to be the
case, then we would need to work a little more on that first rough
counter-draft as he himself has acknowledged. For example one major
reservation I would have is to avoid making it a government-led model (first
rows for governments, folding seats for the rest.) And this is less
dependent on the distribution of stakeholder representatives in the room
than the rules governing their interactions and processes.

***
Re. the anti-government/state utopia:

Now whether we like it or not, states are in our midst - they are IG
stakeholders and powerful ones. We still heavily depend on laws they make
and enforce. And gone are the days when we could think of the cyberspace as
an island completely isolated from the world where states rule - which
also happens to be the world where actual users and providers (outside the
screens and servers that give live to cyberspace) live and own the
proprieties involved in their subsistance. Now you can choose to keep on
believing in your Declaration which IMHO is based on the equivalent of the
"state of nature" of the cyberspace, or you can try and work out a "civil
state" that would guarantee as many as possible of the ideals included in
the initial Declaration based on a clearly defined and agreed upon regime of
rights and responsibilities. (Notes: 1) I do admire John Perry Barlow for
that inspiration; 2) as you must have noticed, I'm reasoning along the lines
of social contract theories, and the last two occurrences of the term
"state" here refer to a condition, not to state as in 'nation-state.')

This is like repeating the exact same flaw that you (McTim, implicitly at
least, but also Karl and a few others) were pointing to in the post about
getting rid of the ICANN's DNS). Here it goes: governments can do very bad
things, therefore let's get rid of governments (from the cyberspace... for
the time being, I guess.) Yes, governments can do very very bad things. But
they will do them anyway, behind the curtains and for the sake of their
particular interests of the moment. There is an African proverb that says
(roughly remembered and translated) something like: if you put the witch or
the malevolent in custody of a good, then they will be less likely to harm
that good... Gee! what a miserable transalation, which does nothing to help
the natural tendency that some may have to mock an attempt to resolve global
governance issues with an African proverb about witches, does it... but I'm
sure with a bit of benevolence, you'll get my drift. The wisdom is that
putting the potential source of evil under watch, in broad day light, where
it can be called out to account if something goes wrong with their
responsibilities might just be a more effective protection/defense.

Just in case the African proverb still does not do the trick, let's get even
heavier: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarism, where she
critically analyzes the liberal political philosophy that shaped the peace
treaties between the two world wars, and reflects on their failure to
effectively protect minorities as they intended. She knows something
about the cost to *stateless* Jews of pretending that liberty and other
fundamental rights can empirically exist and survive without a state. On a
lighter note: watching the political news in the US, I'm always a bit
perplexed that so many organizations and people reportedly against the
government (or for small government) spend so much time and energy running
for office or huge amounts of money lobbying the government. Assuming they
really have nothing to gain from the government, I'm wonder: isntead of
being thrown into the processes of governing, maybe such amounts of money
would help more effectly shrink the government if they were invested for
empowering grassroots efforts for the development of communities (removing
all justification for government to grow with socio-economic welfare
programs.)

Maybe just a little more than my 2 cents.

Mawaki



On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 1:36 PM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

> Continued poverty in India or uneven income distribution in the USA
>
> On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 5:03 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> wrote:
> > McTim
> >
> > And if, in response to my cited figures about India, you may want to say
> > that the real full impact of ICTs may be yet to come to India,
>
> I don't know if I should respond to you anymore, since you seem to
> want to tell me what i am about to say, even though it's miles off the
> mark!
>
>  you may be
> > interested in the statistics of the 'front yard' , the US, where the new
> > innovation based 'ecosystems' you speak of have had the longest play.
>
>
> Continued poverty in India or uneven income distribution in the USA is
> not a revelation.  It is undeniable however that ICTs have played a
> large role in developing both economies.
>
> I find your argument to be a red-herring, if you wish to address the
> substance of my reply to you (I want less governmental interference in
> Internet matters, while you seem to want more), then maybe we can have
> further constructive discussion.
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> McTim
> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
> route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
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