[governance] Completely Ignored [was East Africa IGF - day 2, discussion of ITRs]

Tue Jul 24 07:47:24 EDT 2012

Parminder,

Back from a meeting between the emails.

First things first. Thank you for your email. I cannot imagine ignoring your email. (In fact, the 2011 email shows that neither you nor the issue was ever "completely ignored.") I like to think that I would have answered at least some of your suggestions but I honestly cannot recall it now.

Be that as it may, I may have felt that you were "mollified" (aka agree to disagree) because at that time, you had questioned the legitimacy of the APrIGF. I had said that the legitimacy argument would in fact play into the hands of those who question the legitimacy of civil society, an argument that I thought you accepted. Hence the friendly invite for 2011.

I'm wondering if the debate is now moot because:

 1.  The IGF Secretariat has now come up with the guidelines for what a regional or national IGF should contain. (The Secretariat itself clearly has no problems with others using the IGF to indicate their national or regional IGF is part of the UN-level IGF.) This is a rather low bar and the APrIGF meets it.
 2.  The APrIGF is now under AP*.  Some processes have been put in place for approval of the venue, chair of the PC, etc.
 3.  This year, there was a call for panels and some of the panelists were funded. The next APrIGF will have a similar CFP.

You can expect the APrIGF to be more transparent in the future. And of course your suggestions to improve its governance and processes are always welcome.

Regards,
Peng Hwa

From: Parminder Singh <parminder at ITforChange.net<mailto:parminder at ITforChange.net>>
Date: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 1:30 PM
To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>>, AngPH <tphang at ntu.edu.sg<mailto:tphang at ntu.edu.sg>>
Subject: Re: [governance] Completely Ignored [was East Africa IGF - day 2, discussion of ITRs]

Peng Hwa,

You have mentioned in your email how I had raised a number of issues when you had first organised the so-called APrIGF in Hongkong in 2010. Indeed, after a few exchanges IT for Change agreed to be present at the meeting on the condition that we would basically say the same things at the meeting about its legitimacy etc as we had been arguing. You kindly consented and we did attend the meeting and made our point.

However, what surprises me is your conclusion that we were somehow mollified by our conversations with you at Hongkong and then at Vilnius. There is no question of such mollification without the issues we raised being addressed, and as is evident, they never were.

What is even more surprising are your comments, quote below from your email of the last week, about the second so called APrIGF in Singapore.

       "When I organized the meeting in Singapore, you did not raise any objection." and, again later in the email  " In Singapore, you did not raise any objections. And I thought that's where the issue stood."  (Peng Hwa)

It has obviously entirely skipped your memory, but when you wrote to me inviting me for the Singapore meeting, I wrote a detailed email to you which not only raised the same issues that I had raised earlier, but also suggested, in considerable detail, what in our opinion is the right way to go about organising the APrIGF (so much so for all this talk from various parties that I should be constructive etc, which I must say is a more than a bit patronising). I reproduce below my email to you before Singapore. I would not make your response public which is up to you to decide whatever to do about. I however must say that I had even at that time asked for your permission to make my email public but was persuaded not to, pending further f2f discussions etc which never happened.
parminder

My email in response to an invitation to attend the Singapore so called APrIGF is below. On 5/3/11 12:36 AM, "Parminder Singh" <parminder at ITforChange.net> wrote:

  Dear Peng Hwa,

 It is always nice to hear from you, and hope you are doing well!

 Thank you for inviting me to chair a session during the proposed meeting. I do quite appreciate the utmost sincerely and serious application that you bring to your efforts to keep a dialogue on Internet Governance alive in the Asia Pacific region. However, for the reason mentioned below in some detail , I am constrained to decline your kind invitation.

 As mentioned in our conversations before the similar meeting last year, I do not think it legitimate to call any meeting as a regional IGF without a minimum standard of broad participation and 'ownership', especially of public interest actors. Last year I was told that it was the first time and the meeting has been planned in haste, and that things should improve for subsequent meetings. However, in this invite for the 2011 meeting I see no indication about who all are on the organizing committee, how was the agenda and speaker selection arrived at, etc.

 Apart from the basic legitimacy question, holding of such meetings under the banner of national/regional IGFs has a negative reverse impact on the global IGF to make it look like it too was just another annual conference on IG, which I do not think it is (though some people do) . I think that the global IGF is, or at least is supposed to be, an innovative experiment in deliberative and participatory democracy for global governance of the Internet. At least some basic features of the global IGF suggests the possibility that the global IGF can, if we have the political will for it, hopefully evolve to be something close to this ideal. These features are; strong mooring in a public institution - or a set of them, a good amount of public funding (though not at all of the kind, and extent, that can be considered satisfactory), a multistakeholder group deciding the agenda of the meeting and the speakers through an intensively consultative process, and such.

 While some of us are struggling to ensure that the annual IGF has an even greater public and democratic character, organization of completely private meetings opaquely planned and executed, with unknown sponsors and key drivers, like the proposed meeting being called the Asia Pacific Regional IGF, is to us a retrograde step. It is for this reason that we cannot associate with it, and in fact oppose it to be held under its proposed name.

 I do understand how difficult it is to be  innovative and entrepreneurial in such matters and actually pull an event like this together; and in relation how facile it may be considered to criticize such almost valiant efforts. I must therefore engage constructively and suggest what could alternatively have been done and would, in my opinion, have been the better option. Though I cannot suggest funding options right away, it is possible that the Asia Pacific UN regional commission (ESCAP) could have shown some interest in this event. Was it even approached at all? Funding from governments of some countries could also been explored apart from sourcing 'monopoly funds' (akin to Internet tax) that are collected by registrars and such registries that use the commons resources of geo-political expressions like ctlds. In any case, wider participation of public interest actors is always possible to seek. There was this Asia Pacific Civil Society Caucus at WSIS, which is now defunct but one can recollect some key names of those - individuals and organizations - who participated actively. Then there are Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus members from Asia Pacific quite active in the Internet Governance  Caucus. There are also MAG members from this region. I have no indication that these actors had any role at all in shaping an activity which is being called the Asia Pacific Regional IGF.

 I must once again mention that I hold you and your sincere efforts towards a continued dialogue on Internet governance in our region in great esteem. And this statement is made most sincerely because I have known you and your work closely. The proposed meeting should simply have been named something like 'an regional dialogue on IG' or some such thing rather than a regional IGF. In this regard we have the example of EURODIG. I do hope that such a change can still be made so that it leaves no room for confusion regarding the nature of the proposed meeting.

 We should do nothing to contribute to promoting privatized realms of governance for such an important social, economic, political and cultural phenomenon as the Internet. We fear that through privatized governance models for the Internet, what is really being done is to challenge the very essentials of democratic thought and ideals for all aspects of our social life.

 I look forward to hear your response to the issues that I have raised, and discuss them at as much length as may be required. However, meanwhile, I may have to take the contents of this letter to the public domain, since it really is not a response to you individually but a much larger engagement with issues concerning democracy and public interest, specifically about the nature of institutions that can serve these ideals.

 With respect, and the very best regards

 Parminder

 On Thursday 28 April 2011 06:38 AM, Ang Peng Hwa (Prof) wrote:
 APrIGF
Dear Parminder,

 Greetings from Singapore!

 I append below the draft programme for the coming APrIGF in Singapore. This will be jus before the ICANN meeting.

 1.  Can you make it?
 2.  Can you participate in a panel or chair one? We have the plenaries as well as the workshops.
 3.

 Regards,
 Peng Hwa

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