[governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime

Wed Oct 30 10:03:26 EDT 2013

Just a small correction... for the record: In the second para./block text
of my email below, I meant to write Yalta conference, NOT Malta
conference... although both took place and one followed the other in 1945.
Or is that the collateral effect of Diplo on my memory? :)

mawaki

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 12:00 AM, Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:

> Milton et al.,
>
> Good to see you resurface, MM :-) Oh "Lawd"! What trouble have I got
> myself into???
> A reminder on context... I'm not in Bali. We received a note from one of
> us leading the CS organizing in Bali that the dynamic in the i orgs was
> essentially a power grabbing one, tech vs. govt-centric (was not clear
> where the non-tech CS fits in all that.) Then we see another person
> response asking (as I understood it then, but this has been corrected
> since) whether CS shouldn't feel okay with that. So what I was reacting to,
> basically, is the over simplification you're denouncing which precisely,
> IMHO, leads to believe that "govts are so evil that just kicking them out
> of the tent (and replacing them by tech or whoever, for that matter) would
> resolve our problems." I didn't defined the terms of the discussion. But
> since it was reportedly about tech (and)(vs) govt, I sought to (or at least
> I thought I was trying) to bring some nuance in the discussion by saying on
> the one hand govt is not all evil, may be useful to something and on the
> other tech does not have solution for everything, can get it wrong. That's
> not finger pointing or over simplified categorization. If anyone thought I
> was bashing the tech community, please amend the record --that's just not
> who I am. But I'm ready to tell them, no single stakeholder group is
> perfect or can get it right by itself, and we need to do this together.
> Actually, if you ask me, I believe we are more capable of effecting change
> if tech and CS would work intelligently together, as opposed to being
> anti-tech.
>
> Now regarding the history lesson, yeah I learned a couple of things about
> the history of the 20th century in junior high, in senior high, and had
> read quite a bit about it at least for years into college, thank you! For
> some of us in Africa, even our parents or grand parent also fought in the 2
> big wars that shaped that century, particularly the WW2 in order to
> liberate France and stem the tide of Nazism taking over UK. I guess that
> might have been a good reason to justify those episodes in far-away lands
> being featured so prominently in our curricula. So yes, I know a couple of
> things about Pearl Harbor, the Manhattan Project and its result, Japan
> devastated and Europe in ruins, the Marshall Plan, the Malta conference and
> the beginning of the saga of the United Nations and related specialized
> organizations, led by... the United States.
>
> Let me just add this. The notion of HR was not new... English
> revolutions... the French revolution... and the US founding fathers tapping
> into the same ideas to shape their constitution... WW2 was the opportunity
> to make those ideas universal, and the only large country that was standing
> tall then, with a newly found unique power on the world stage as a
> consequence of the war -- the US -- did just that and that was a good
> thing. And guess what, they didn't do it by calling for another revolution
> (I guess the war was enough) or for a multistakeholder summit with CS and
> others. It was with its attributes and power as nation-state that the US
> was able to "ram the UDHR down to everyone's throats," particularly the
> other governments' and get them to sign a treaty! Can you believe that? An
> international treaty, something that only sovereign governments sign into a
> legal instrument. Now, I think the USG has always been one of the smartest
> we've had around the world, in abstraction of whether you are on their side
> or not (they just happen to do some dumb things once in a while, like any
> other governments many of whom do worse, but that's another story.) So I
> tend to believe they must have had some good reasons to spend their
> political capital on getting a treaty that included HRs, as opposed to say,
> making it just a plain, non-binding Declaration like in most previous
> historical occurrences.
>
> Epilogue: I haven't re-read myself in the email you are responding to, but
> taking it from you MM, in my phrase "a world led by governments" referring
> to UDHR, the plural for "governments" was meant to be generic --not that
> all govts labored hard to give birth to UDHR as a gift to the world, but
> something like the following: an era where national sovereigns were mostly
> in charge of world affairs, the stage of world affairs was mainly organized
> around them. USG is a govt -- one of them -- and it did some good things in
> the aftermath of WW2. History didn't stop with the UDHR treaty however, and
> USG is not the only govt in history which has done something good about or
> with UDHR. I'm sure in the latter part of the 20th century, some govts who
> caught up with the whole idea might have used their clout or some leverage
> with weaker but less HR-friendly governments (for instance, the kind of
> govts that wouldn't mind opening the fire on their citizens/CS in the
> streets --does that ring a bell still in the 21st century?)  in order to
> have them pay a little more regard to the HRs of their citizens. Hence, me
> saying govts (the ones which are so willing), with the power or clout that
> is only theirs, may also help "uphold" or respect HRs -- or whatever I
> wrote along those lines that made you jump off your chair, MM.
>
> Sorry folks for the length of my response. It really is a tough thing to
> fully and accurately express what one means (as to avoid misunderstanding)
> while keeping it short, when the language in use doesn't soar from one's
> guts, i.e not one's natural first language. Bearing with this is part of
> the small price you have to pay for a relatively inclusive and diverse
> forum, to whatever degree, the highest price being borne by the writer. So
> are my explanations clear enough, MM, or should I put together a commercial
> a la Christine O'Donnell (the "I am not a witch" tea-partier) in order to
> claim "I am not a government idolater, nor am I an anti-techies"?
>
> mawaki
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>>  All
>>
>>  It would be a mistake to let this discussion degenerate into
>> categorizations of empty stakeholder abstractions: governments as
>> "upholders of human rights" (cough!), technical community as good or bad,
>> etc. This is one of the truly silly things about the decision the I*
>> organizations made to label the proper approach to Internet governance as
>> "the multistakeholder model." As if there were "the" single model (there
>> isn't), as if multistakeholderism actually described IETF (it doesn't), as
>> if the presence of multiple stakeholders in a process automatically means
>> good, freedom and efficiency-enhancing governance (it doesn't).
>>
>>  Talking about "techies" - either pro or con - is just not helpful at
>> this point. Same goes for claims regarding "civil society." Better to talk
>> about specific values and objectives and how VERY SPECIFIC institutional
>> mechanisms contribute to them, or not. There is some legitimate space for
>> concern about who is represented in meetings and decision making, and I
>> very much do share Jeremy's concern about the I* organizations running away
>> with the ball, but finger-pointing regarding stakeholder categories is
>> pointless.
>>
>>  A bit of a historical correction for you also, Mawaki. It was a world
>> led by the _United States_ government that gave us the Universal
>> Declaration of Human Rights. Not a world led by "governments." We rammed it
>> down everyone's throats, and anyway the formulation of and advocacy for
>> rights comes from a vibrant civil society under certain kinds of
>> constitutional regimes, not from states as states. The US had just won WW2,
>> and had unparalleled hegemony over Europe, Japan and many other parts of
>> the world. It never would have happened otherwise. I don't think that
>> lesson has any clear relevance to current discussions regarding IG, but if
>> you think it does, perhaps you can explain in more detail.
>>
>>  --MM
>>  ------------------------------
>> *From:* governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [
>> governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] on behalf of Mawaki Chango [
>> kichango at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 23, 2013 12:53 PM
>> *To:* Internet Governance; McTim
>> *Cc:* Jeremy Malcolm; Bits bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
>> *Subject:* Re: [governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow
>> lunchtime
>>
>>   Thanks, Jeremy, for alerting us about what is going on with the
>> "technical" community.
>> Personally, I'm okay with moving the call for endorsement to 24hrs
>> earlier --just as I agree with the need for more private/f2f strategizing.
>>
>>  McTim, multistakeholder does not mean anti-governmentalism. Nor does it
>> say the "technical community" takes over from government. It really means
>> "on equal footing" etc., governments included, if you ask me. Furthermore,
>> I do not think I have any track record for celebrating governments, but
>> I'll say this. In some circumstances, governments may be evil, but it was
>> also a world led by governments which gave us the Universal Declaration of
>> Human Rights and related texts, which have served as formidable normative
>> tools for social progress. And sometimes, some of them put a stake into
>> seeing those norms upheld.
>>
>>  Left to their own devices, techies don't necessarily have the best
>> interest of the user at heart (I suspect Vint Cerf would agree with me
>> since while opposing the notion that Internet is a HR, he suggested that
>> designers could do a better job in making the technology more HR-friendly,
>> so to speak, in short.) While they do a lot of wonderful things --there's
>> no denying that, not of my part anyway-- techies cannot write a clean and
>> accurate user guide for... users! It is my sense that they are mostly
>> impressed with impressing their peers, as is often the case with minority
>> groups of meritocrats. So yes, seeing "multistakeholderism" as the
>> opportunity to shift from "government-centric" to "techno-centric" should
>> be a matter of concern to CS --or to any plain citizen, for that matter.
>>
>>  I'm just saying -- "on equal footing" my dear!
>>
>>  Mawaki
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 2:37 PM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Jeremy,
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 4:57 AM, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> > I haven't had a chance to write about the technical community meeting
>>> that
>>> > took place at lunchtime today, but it felt (to me) like an astonishing
>>> > power-grab in progress - they are forming a new coalition that will
>>> create a
>>> > "grassroots" campaign, with the pre-determined objective of
>>> reasserting the
>>> > primacy of "the" multi-stakeholder model against "government-centric"
>>> > models.
>>>
>>>  CS should not have a problem with that, we should embrace it as it
>>> gives CS more clout than a Inter-gov model, no?
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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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>>
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>
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