[governance] On "ad hominem" and "twisting words"

[Daniel Pimienta]

For the sake of balancing the growing counter of 
+1 on Bertand's mail and preventing a group to 
find unanimously the perfect guilty for the 
turmoil on the communication flow during the last 
months in this forum, I would like to express a -1 on Bertand's mail.

First of all, the process of slow deterioration 
of the good spirit is NOT the product of one 
person expression but the result of an 
interaction with other person’s expression and I 
do not think I have to offer names, if your 
memory of the co-co's actions is neat.

Second, and much more important, what is at stake 
behind this situation is NOT a mere question of 
people style; in the background, there is a 
profound issue of the role of civil society in Internet Governance.

I consider myself that a good provision of 
"constructive provocation" is an intrinsic part 
of my civil society role and I have been worried 
for years in this forum to perceive a clear trend 
of anesthesia of the discourse of civil society, 
for the sake of allowing  multistakeholderism to 
perform smoothly. I have been (and I am still) 
quite worried that this trend will not transform 
us (organized civil society) in the unwilling 
accomplices of many bad actions performed in our field.

It is enough to see the sweetness of the IGF 
statements in situation like PRISM, compared to 
other groups, to assess this point.

The main reason I am more a lurker than a 
contributor in this forum is to be found there 
(and not in the fact that some discussion get 
heated). The main reason why Funredes has 
resigned recently from APC membership (without 
loosing respect and good relationships) is also 
to be found here (my analysis is that the price 
to pay in silencing and smoothing our critics has gotten too high).

Is it not a risky game to accept to be so polite 
that we loose our soul; shall we resist to such 
level of politeness? I tend to answer yes at the 
light of the evolution of the Internet.

What is at stake here and the fractures which are 
underlying are not details of Internet history 
and too much naivety may turned to become a crime 
against virtual humanity; the role of ICANN, the 
need to see the historical grab of US in Internet 
governance evolve, the appropriate balance of 
security and privacy, the implication of the 
dominant economical model that –mainly- Google 
has imposed based uniquely in advertisements and 
the terrible consequences in our privacy and 
comfort which are hardly evocated here, the 
difficulty of the requirements on multilingualism 
to get accepted in spite of a more accommodating discourse...

When in last IGF meeting, in Baku, I felt the 
role of civil society was starting to blur and I 
got quite worried to see ICANN implementing a 
totally artificial (and super expensive) 
economical model for domain names and the 
appearing passivity of my civil society 
colleagues. Our proactivity and capacity to 
resist seemed to have decline so much.

As a mental reaction, I develop a cartoon in my 
mind that I resisted to share at that time (in 
order to keep polite and avoid embarrassing my 
civil society colleagues) but I will now as a 
reaction against the attempt to definitively shut up provocation.

I will, not only for this episode of apparent 
consensus against one of the more provocative 
civil society voice of this forum, but also 
because I have been so disappointed that the 
opportunity of the moment when the Balis's 
meeting was jeopardized was not used to ask the 
real questions for this group but instead to 
demonstrate the typical homeostasis syndrome of 
groups who must keep existing the same way just 
because they have existed so far).

The cartoon is based on the Arab proverb that is 
quite famous: the dogs bark and the caravan 
passes (the trigger may habe been a wonderful 
restaurant in the old town named Caravanseray :-)).

Imagine a long road heading to a big tower of 
dollars, not so far away in the perspective. 
Imagine a caravan named ICANN. Imagine a bunch of 
dogs marked IGF which are barking between them 
and around the caravan. Imagine the caravan does 
not care at all and keep passing towards the big money...
We can also use the image with US government in 
the caravan and PRISM at the end of the road.

Sorry if my words will disturb many of you but it 
feels so good to be provocative again. :-)


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