[governance] Clues for WCIT issues and prospects

Suresh Ramasubramanian suresh at hserus.net
Mon Dec 17 18:48:04 EST 2012 

Riaz, I see such things from the perspective of a student of history and without wearing ideological blinkers of any wing whatsoever.  Sometimes that helps me see facts clearer than if I tried to fit facts to my notions of a social construct.

My focus has been to try and create meaningful assistance to developing countries that drives self reliance and internal capacity building, and not solely a dependence / expectation of regular aid.  It would have been the same if they were Indians, Chinese (neither of whom all look alike or I couldn't tell my colleagues from HK apart) or a rural poor community in the Appalachians.

A colonial or colonized past from six decades or centuries back should not be allowed to influence that.  And for the record my grandfather was kicked out of his job in the 1940s for supporting Subhash Bose's INA.  So no, this is not a right wing defence of colonialism.

--srs (iPad)

On 17-Dec-2012, at 23:07, riaz.tayob at gmail.com wrote:

> suresh
> Thanks for this right wing, IMHO, post.... Refreshingly robust. Glad tolerance on this list is higher for right wing public interest than other wings... Only one question about your blandishment/s (or rethorical flourish), did all the Kenyans / NGO-types look alike?
> 
> And by some accounts, some of the first the New England farmer settlers received help from the "aggrandizing" first people's of North America in their formative years. And we know, victors write history... Perhaps with climate change we will get a chance to figure out who the real civilized ones were...
> 
> Riaz
> 
> ...,...
> 
> On 17 Dec 2012, at 3:56 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh at hserus.net> wrote:
> 
>> :)  To be very fair, the history of various Indian tribes was also a history of conquest of tribes that were less powerful to them, so much so that three major tribes are still known to us by the defeated tribes' word for "enemy" .. Sioux, Comanche and Apache (the tribes' own word for themselves was typically some variant of "The people" - implying that most others from outside their tribe weren't particularly worthy of consideration, and to be defeated and plundered as and when the opportunity arose).  
>> 
>> Those times were, shall we say, a dog eat dog world, and a history that definitely needs to be remembered to avoid repeating mistakes that were made in the past. 
>> 
>> I fully agree with you that any development and change can and must be driven from within Africa, and well meaning offers of aid without local knowledge run into the situation that a friend of mine (who used to live in Kenya, and speaks fluent Swahili) encountered when he accompanied a colleague from a rather prominent NGO that I shall not name here, to address a gathering of local NGO types.
>> 
>> This colleague started off with all the usual preliminaries about how Kenya was such a beautiful country, and made a fairly long speech - during which at least some of the audience were muttering to themselves in swahili "when is this mzungu (rather derogatory term for a white man) going to shut up and start signing the checks?"
>> 
>> In fact driving change from within a country and promoting local capacity building was the thrust of this OECD paper I wrote back in 2005, on spam issues in developing countries.  http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/47/34935342.pdf
>>  
>> --srs (iPad)
>> 
>> On 17-Dec-2012, at 19:04, Dominique Lacroix <dl at panamo.eu> wrote:
>> 
>>> Precisely, Suresh. A sherif enforced American laws on Indians territories. The metaphor tells about political conflicts, not about criminality.
>>> That's why I talked earlier about colonisation. And that's why, even if I agree with all comments about Africa (especially about monopolies and corruption), I overall agree with the idea that nobody can be a better help for development than the people of the country themselves. Africa is now an extraordinary lab about mobile uses in African languages... And we saw only the beginning!
>>> 
>>> @+, Dom
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Le 17/12/12 14:14, Suresh Ramasubramanian a écrit :
>>>> No I am sorry - that is just one of the myths that needs rebutting.  There's no "sherriff of the internet" going on here any more than this is the Wild West.  Any international law enforcement - online - as a matter of course follows a complex system of MLATs (and/or the budapest convention on cybercrime, with other signatory countries).  
>>>> 
>>>> My rudimentary knowledge of french (vin blanc, svp at the most, or perhaps merci m'sieur) found the actual text very pleasant to read, but for a deeper understanding I did have to machine translate it, to my regret.   It is a persuasive argument though, and doubtless quite well told in french, but it is a line of thinking that doesn't quite match ground realities, at least when it comes to cross border enforcement actions against criminals.
>>>> 
>>>> --srs (iPad)
>>>> 
>>>> On 17-Dec-2012, at 18:37, Dominique Lacroix <dl at panamo.eu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Thank you Suresh for your comment.
>>>>> I understand your difficulty to understand, because the text uses a metaphor.
>>>>> Yes, Sheridan was not a sherif, but the US consider themselves, nowadays, as the sherif of Internet.
>>>>> About the bazaar, it's a slight reference to the fact that diffenciation between several agents is not a question of price.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The style of the text is pleasant for French and not-engineers readers, precisely because Kavé, who is very well educated in European culture, often tell tales, analogies and metaphors.
>>>>> He is a French University teacher and also he has a Persian culture. That's why he uses tales and poetry.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Perhaps we shall try an English translation.
>>>>> 
>>>>> @+, best, Dominique
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Dominique Lacroix
>>>>> http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr
>>>>> Société européenne de l'Internet
>>>>> http://www.ies-france.eu
>>>>> +33 (0)6 63 24 39 14
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Le 17/12/12 12:12, Suresh Ramasubramanian a écrit :
>>>>>> Some slightly mixed up concepts, such as that general Philip sheridan was a career army officer and was never a sheriff or other law enforcement officer in his lifetime. And some notions from ESR's cathedral and the bazaar. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I don't know if it is because of the narrative bringing in strange analogies, or because of using Google translate to read the article, but I found it hard to understand. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In any case wild west analogies for cyberspace are non sequitirs
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> --srs (htc one x)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ----- Reply message -----
>>>>>> From: "Dominique Lacroix" <dl at panamo.eu>
>>>>>> To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
>>>>>> Subject: [governance] Clues for WCIT issues and prospects
>>>>>> Date: Mon, Dec 17, 2012 3:42 PM
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>> For those who can read French or a translator, Kavé Salamatian proposes 
>>>>>> interesting interpretations of WCIT issues and prospects :
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Le cyberespace et ses Indiens : 
>>>>>> http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/12/16/le-cyberespace-et-ses-indiens/
>>>>>> Jeux de coopération au Bazar : 
>>>>>> http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/12/17/jeux-de-cooperation-au-bazar/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> @+, best, Dominique
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> Dominique Lacroix
>>>>>> http://reseaux.blog.lemonde.fr
>>>>>> Société européenne de l'Internet
>>>>>> http://www.ies-france.eu
>>>>>> +33 (0)6 63 24 39 14
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