[governance] IGC

[Deirdre Williams]

Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Over the last several years IGC, through this discussion space, has been
subject to a series of debilitating attacks. That we are still here, still
discussing, is a tribute to your strength, your support and your good sense.
It seems to me that the IGC list has a very important role to play in
creating a system of governance for the internet that will be acceptable to
everyone. This is because it is a space in which ALL of the different
opinions and perspectives, however divergent from one another, can be
shared for consideration and discussion.
IGC depends on all of us for survival.
The language issue is a very important one. Somehow diversity of language
and culture has slid right down in the list of what are considered to be
priorities in the global discussions. I find it very unfortunate that the
technology itself, which surely has the capacity to solve this problem for
us, has not yet developed as fully as it might in respect of translation.
However automatic translation is very much better than it was.
So we are left with a situation in which English is the lingua franca. We
have a choice. We can be grateful that we have a tool which allows us to
communicate with one another to some extent, or we can allow our different
languages to separate us. For me the possibility of communication is the
most important thing.
I hope that this discussion can find a constructive conclusion.
A wise Spanish speaking friend suggested to me at this year's IGF that the
IGC might benefit from a reminder of what a united civil society was able
to achieve during the WSIS process
<https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs/geneva/civil-society-declaration.pdf>.
Several of the original collaborators on this document are still in the
IGC. They speak many languages. This is the final paragraph of their
document:
We commit ourselves – independent of the modalities of participation
granted to us by governments – to pursuing by all just and honourable means
necessary the realization of the vision of the information society
presented herein. ... We call upon the world's leaders to urgently assume
the heavy responsibilities they face, in partnership with civil society, to
make this vision a reality.

Deirdre

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