RE: [atlarge-discuss] 006 Deciding Name for Organisation

[espresso@e-scape.net]

At 21:32 -0700 2002/08/09, Bruce Young wrote:
>I agree.  Keep tightly focused on our core concerns, which for now parallel
>ICANNs.  We'll have plenty of time to expand our scope once we have the
>membership to support it!

What we have here, I think, is a classic chicken vs. egg argument. 

If our "core concerns" are defined narrowly -- primarily in terms of ICANN, DNS administration, licencing of registrars, etc. -- the vast majority of the population (including myself) will have little reason to wish to devote a lot of time to this initiative.

If our "core concerns" are defined too broadly, we'll be deluged with members who will press to have energy directed towards digital divide issues, questions of governance by unelected supranational bodies,  questions about infrastructure being left to the private sector, and lord knows what else... and who won't know or care what a root server is, let alone who owns it or whether it's properly backed up and protected.

I would place myself somewhere in the middle in the argument: I may be firmly convinced in my own mind that the egg comes first but I do recognize that the chicken is required to make more. 

That is to say, I see one of our prime roles is to critique the way ICANN was set up, the way it set out to "fulfill" its mandate in PR terms but not in reality, the way it has now eliminated even that token effort while claiming exclusive rights over the Internet which were never legally given to it, etc. 

BUT I see another role for us which is no less important: to demonstrate how a democratic global community of Internet users can organize  the grassroots electoral process needed to ensure that Internet governance is transferred to and remains in responsible hands -- that is, in the hands of people who see administration of the Internet as a sacred trust rather than an opportunity for commercial control and personal empire-building, and who are directly answerable to the people who elect them. 

Personally, I do not believe this can be done by encompassing only those who are already working in the ICT industries or interested specifically in the technology for its own sake. 

If we believe in a democratic Internet, it makes no sense to hand the control over it to what is, in effect, merely a larger technological elite than the one ICANN is drawn from... and probably one with no better understanding of the global social and political issues which must be addressed if the Internet is to be a public good rather than an exploitable product. We would need a much broader base of support, which means taking on an educational function: teaching the "world at large" what Internet governance is and why it matters, actively helping Internet users to organize themselves and speak collectively about what they need from the Net, etc. 

That's a MUCH bigger job than merely countering ICANN's position on various issues or trying to elect people to work from within the existing system of powerless committees whose recommendations can be safely ignored. But if we are not prepared to take that on, I suspect the most productive thing those in this group can do is to focus on educating their own elected government representatives to the issues and trying to form national or regional pressure groups which might have some impact on U.S. government policy.

Anyway, one thing I am sure of: a broadbased grassroots organization sticking strictly to an ICANN-set agenda is extremely unlikely to happen, and I can't see reading the equivalent of a book a day in list postings plus doing a lot of volunteer work to try to get one going. If we can't define our goals in terms the average reasonable Internet user can comprehend and relate to, the resulting organization will be far from representative of the world even if it does get 100,000 members from the techie community.

Sorry if this makes me a wet blanket but I'm over 50 and only a semi-geek so I'd probably want to put my own energies into something else of more use to the rest of the world, like making sure that they can have affordable,uncensored access to news and information from around the world and the right to speak their own minds.

Regards,

Judyth

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Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
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"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once 
they have exhausted all other alternatives." (Abba Eban)
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