[governance] Who are we?

[Deirdre Williams]

Colleagues and friends,

I have been “listening” carefully over the last few days, since Wolfgang's
"Why?". I also deplore the apathy and antagonism that seem to characterise
the IGC now. I had hoped that, left to itself, the list would re-find
balance and harmony for the sharing of ideas. Apparently I was wrong.


It is distressing that both Bestbits and JNC, having each decided that they
preferred to come together with likeminded persons, should both then decide
to use IGC as a battleground. This list (IGC) grew out of an awareness of
diversity of opinion in civil society, and a recognition that there needed
to be a space for objective discussion without rancour of these very
diverse ideas in the hope of reaching some form of consensus, or at least
of understanding one another.


Earlier this week I was present at a meeting locally at which a venerable
and respected NGO (turned 60 last year) was probably killed by people
shouting for democracy. What was needed was that everyone should work
together to clear up a rather dirty mess that had been created. The
shouting meant that most people left. “Demos” is surely about “everyone”.
In the same way the term “multistakeholder” ten years ago in Tunis was a
great victory, gaining entry for civil society. Now it can be seen that it
gave access to other groups as well, some of them powerful enough now to
drown out the voice that civil society had gained.


Words are very powerful, and arguing about them takes a lot of energy, but
meanwhile life goes on. And there are things to be done that need doing.
And for that we need effective participation and discussion. In fact we
need a version of the “multistakeholder” model we keep arguing about, only
this time a “multiperspective” model. And we need to find a way to come
together again, because united we have more power than we seem to realise.


At the Bestbits meeting in Istanbul last year I asked why we seemed to
accept and propagate the external opinion that civil society is powerless,
dependent; why not instead present ourselves as a force to be reckoned
with, which in fact we are. People seemed to agree. In 2007 in Puerto Rico,
at an ISOC meeting held during ICANN 29, when the funding for the newly
established Fellowship programme was questioned by a member of the ICANN
Board, the very quiet voice of an ISOC member from France pointed out that
in fact “we”, the users, supply all of the funding and so the matter is one
of entitlement rather than of charity.


So let’s regroup so that we can present a common front and so that “they’ll
see how beautiful (and powerful) [we] are, and be ashamed” (with apologies
to Langston Hughes)


Deirdre

-- 
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
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