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[atlarge-discuss] We are not alone -- Fwd. WSIS: Virtual PrepOns in cyberspacefor the Information Society
This material is not about ICANN but it holds some interest, I think, for the potential of an "At Large" community that really works.
<< start of forwarded material >>
From: "Chris Zielinski" <informania@supanet.com>
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 14:05:03 +0100
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________________________________________
Friends,
This is to provide you with an update on developments with UNESCO
regarding the idea of an online PrepCom, or PrepOn. The message from Mr
Philippe Queau, Director of UNESCO's Information Society Division is
given below, together with the background correspondence in case anyone
missed it first time round.
I have followed up on the message from Mr Queau by writing to Axel
Plathe to offer the specific proposal that a UNESCO Virtual PrepOn be
set up as an online conference with a series of set topics for
discussion. The notion is that discussion on these topics would seek to
achieve consensus or conclusions, including position papers, which would
be fed into the WSIS preparatory process and the Summit itself.
Hopefully this can be organized quite quickly. Once there is an OK, we
can seek input from everyone regarding the choice of specific topics,
identifying people to introduce the topics, ensuring that the widest
possible participation is achieved, and negotiating the input of this
work into WSIS.
Best,
Chris
Chris Zielinski
Director, Information Waystations and Staging Posts Network
18 Monks Orchard, Petersfield, Hants GU32 2JD, United Kingdom
Tel: Home: 0044-1730-301297 Office: 0044-1730-710324
Mobile: 0044-797-10-45354 Fax: 0044-1730-265398
e-mail: informania@supanet.com
web site: http://www.iwsp.org
From: Queau, Philippe [mailto:p.queau@unesco.org]
Sent: 31 July 2002 16:52
To: Chris Zielinski
Subject: RE: WSIS: Virtual PrepOns in cyberspace for the Information
Society
Mr Zielinski,
I certainly do share your views in this matter. However I think a step
in this direction has already been taken, at least judging from the
Annex II of the final report of PrepCom I (in annex), which reads:
"The first meeting of the Preparatory Committee of the World Summit on
the Information Society (PrepCom-1) decides that:
• Accredited NGOs and business sector entities are encouraged to
actively participate in the intergovernmental preparatory process and
the Summit as observers.
• All of these actors would have the same status.
• NGOs and business sector entities will be allowed to make the
following substantive contributions:
• Substantive written contributions along with executive summaries
thereof would be welcomed on the basis of the Summit themes with fixed
deadlines. They will be published by the Executive Secretariat on the
WSIS website and circulated upon request in hard copies to the
governments.
All executive summaries would be compiled by the Secretariat in a
document according to the Summit themes, identifying the sources.
The document will be widely circulated before the second preparatory
meeting and all stakeholders would have the opportunity to discuss its
contents and hold workshops and meetings to coordinate positions.
As an informal part of the Preparatory Committee meetings, a number of
multi-stakeholders thematic roundtables will be organized. The outcome
of these thematic roundtables will be a Chairman's summary of the
discussion, which will be submitted to the preparatory committee and
incorporated in its records.."
--- end of quote ---
As you can see, the WSIS Website will be open to civil society
contributions. However, and in addition, UNESCO is willing to play a
role in facilitating on-line discussions on topics related to UNESCO's
mandate.
I suggest that you contact Mr Axel Plathe (a.plathe@unesco.org) who is
in charge of setting up UNESCO WSIS website to further continue
practical discussions to that end.
Regards,
Philippe Quéau
Director, Information Society Division, UNESCO
Tel +33 1 45 68 45 00 Fax +33 1 45 68 55 83
http://www.unesco.org/webworld
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Zielinski [mailto:informania@supanet.com]
Sent: mercredi 31 juillet 2002 12:42
Mr Queau,
This is to forward for your information a couple of messages that were
recently posted on some of the Civil Society discussion groups. The key
proposal is that the WSIS PrepCom process be supplemented by a PrepOn
process – an online version of the PrepCom. The idea is to have a
structured, goal-directed activity open to Information Society as a
whole, rather than just to those who are able to make it to physical
meetings. This is envisaged as being more than just a website or
discussion list, but a true preparatory effort. I would welcome your
views.
Sincerely,
Chris
Chris Zielinski
The World Summit on the Information Society needs to be prepared with
input from the world's Information Society!
It strikes me as a complete paradox that a World Summit on the
Information Society should hold physical PrepComs in meatspace with
participation by society (whether civil or other) rather than virtual
PrepOns in cyberspace with participation by the Information Society. Of
course there is an offline version of the Information Society, with
issues that need addressing, but that is not why the term was coined.
ITU and UNESCO are strongly urged to establish a Preparatory Online
Committee (PrepOn? PrepOnCom?) as an organized online pre-conference
list-based conference working to an agenda (not just a passive website
or unstructured open discussion). It should be focussed on achieving
specific consensual results that get fed into the eventual WSIS. Rather
than creating alternative structures, this is surely the best way to get
the views of Information Society into its World Summit.
We could all (IAIA, wsis-prep, CRISinfo, and a number of others)
collaborate to make such a process work by including our recent
organizational/committee/caucus-forming work in the organization of the
PrepOn .
Chris
Chris Zielinski
Director, Information Waystations and Staging Posts Network (IWSP)
Coordinator, International Alliance on Information for All (IAIA) 18
Monks Orchard, Petersfield, Hants GU32 2JD, United Kingdom
Tel: Home: 0044-1730-301297 Office: 0044-1730-710324
Mobile: 0044-797-10-45354 Fax: 0044-1730-265398
e-mail: informania@supanet.com
web site: http://www.iwsp.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Gurstein
Sent: 31 July 2002 08:10
To: Wsis-Prep1@Lists. Cpsr. Org; Gcn-Wsisinfo@Globalcn. Tc. Ca
I don't mean to be churlish, and I fully recognize the efforts that have
been going into these WSIS-preparatory processes. I'm not attributing
anything but the highest of motives to one and all, and I know that I am
only restating what everyone already knows. However, I wonder how we can
legitimately talk about Civil Society or anything at all
"representative" when for the most part, participation and thus
"representation" at PrepCom 1 and one can presume PrepCom 2 etc.etc.
will be essentially a process of self-selection and representation by
whoever has the means/opportunity/determination to show up.
What this process does is to leave the "voice" of Civil Society in the
hands of those who
* happen to live close enough to the meeting venue to be able to get
there
* happen to not have anything else pressing to do at that particular
time
* happen to be able to find a benefactor (or self-finance) the trip,
accommodation etc. for participation.
This process selects, I would suggest, a not necessarily representative
group of people let alone one which can legitimately represent Civil
Society or anything else for that matter.
What is especially galling about all this is that at some level this is
a World Summit which is premised on technology enabled social change and
global communication. The technology inevitably is not universally
available, nor do we have the technology as "democracy machines" worked
out quite as well as we might, but surely the 2 or 300,000,000 folks who
are on-line and the probably 5 or 10 times that number who would have
some not too impossible access to the technology, might be expected to
have something to contribute to the process at least as valid as the 100
or so people who fit into the categories above who must be predominantly
Northern European, professional NGO-niks (i.e. more or less working on
this stuff full-time), with either a trust fund, a "deal" of some sort
with one "sponsor" or another, or some sort of a fairly high tolerance
for bad food and inexpensive hotels.
I know these issues have surfaced and been pushed to the margins for the
other Global Conferences, but I don't know, given the topic of this one,
whether it could (or should) be left on the side-lines here.
That the ITU (and UNESCO?) have not as yet initiated any sort of on-line
process for consultation is nothing less than a scandal. That "Civil
Society" has not called them on this, insisted that the process
cannot/should not go forward without some better means of including a
much broader and presumably more representative
consultation/participation process is I think, unacceptable.
How for example, is it possible to justify discussing or promoting
Communications Rights when no process exists for allowing such Rights to
be exercised in this very forum when the tools are at hand and we, who
have been using them to such great effect in recent times, are those who
most legitimately could institute such a process.
I've been reflecting on the WSIS issue for some time and I now realize,
placing WSIS in the context of previous global conferences, that the
most significant long term contribution of the previous conferences has
been the impact that they have had in raising the profile and educating
on the issues, and providing a public and global forum for those most
impacted by the issues and those with voices which otherwise and
previously had not been heard. To my reckoning the greatest impact of
the Women's Summit or of UNCED were on the women's movement and on the
environmental movement (and their governmental counterparts)
respectively rather than in the resonance or import/implementation of
their formal recommendations.
I think by analogy the most significant contribution that can be made by
the WSIS would be to raise issues concerning the possible use and
benefits of on-line technology enabled processes as a contribution to
citizenship and democracy--local, national, global; to identify and
provide impetus in responding to the threats to the use of the
technology for these purposes whether through censorship,
monopolization, or surveillance; and to find means to ensure that the
benefits which can and are being derived from the technology are as
universally distributed as are the risks.
The WSIS and Civil Society's contribution/participation in its processes
should be a model for how an Information Society can function in the
interests of all. We must model of what we speak.
To date all of the discussion and the jockeying between "Civil Society"
and the WSIS has been to my mind a sleight of hand diverting attention
from the real issues which are the fundamentally non-democratic
processes which are at work within the conference as a whole and the
related issue of ignoring the opportunities presented by the very
technology which is being discussed.
I hesitate at this point to draw the obvious conclusion from the above,
but it is my intention to raise this issue and to proceed with the
conclusions at the GCNP Conference in Montreal in October.
Best,
Mike Gurstein
_______________________________________________________
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
http://www.cpsr.org/
_______________________________________________________
wsis-prep1 mailing list
wsis-prep1@lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/wsis-prep1
CRISinfo list
_______________________________________________
Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS)
For more information see http://www.crisinfo.org/
act@crisinfo.org
AND
From: "Bruce Girard" <bgirard@comunica.org>
To: crisinfo@comunica.org
Subject: [CRIS Info] the WSIS and online consultations
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 15:23:15 +0200
CRIS Info is a public list for information and questions about the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) http://crisinfo.org
CRIS also has a Latin American regional list at: http://comunica.org/mailman/listinfo/crisal_comunica.org
<
________________________________________
Hi everyone,
I'd like to wade in with a comment about the various proposals for WSIS online consultations
that have been circulating and that I think we should approach carefully.
The typical message advocating online consultations for the WSIS begins by criticising the
arbitrariness, inequities and possibilities for abuse associated with face-to-face meetings, it
goes on to note that online meetings have the same potential to reflect inequities and allow
abuse, and, finally, it uncritically proposes an online consultation.
Not to belabour the obvious, but if the the problem of access limits the legitimacy of online
consultations and if online consultations are relatively easily manipulated, then why do we
insist that the WSIS hold online consultations? Isn't this just offering them an easy way out?
If I were in the WSIS secretariat and wanted to make my life easy while neutralising civil
society, I would start an online consultation tomorrow and in December 2003 I would be
proudly announce that 500 million people had been given the opportunity to be consulted,
legitimising the process while barely making a dent in the outcome.
It is not enough to insist that the WSIS do an online consultation (in fact, I think we can
assume they will do this). What we have to do is to insist on a full, transparent, public and
participatory consultation. Make use of the Internet, but don't stop at that. Consultation has to
go far beyond the online environment.
There are any number of activities that could be undertaken to do this.
For example, the Secretariat produces an official twice-yearly newsletter about the WSIS. In
its current form it is not very useful (see the latest at
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/newsletter_02_E.pdf). We should insist that a proper newsletter
be financed by the civil society division of the WSIS secretariat, with an independent editorial
committee, with a more frequent publishing schedule, printed and distributed widely (on
paper as well as on the Internet) and with the specific objective of informing and supporting
civil society initiatives around the WSIS and its themes. Other publications, videos and radio
programmes must also be produced and distributed.
These materials should be produced in a way that they can be used as inputs for local,
national and regional meetings, which would then have to have channels by which their
conclusions could be fed back to the WSIS process as well as to other similar meetings in
other locations.
Most importantly, the WSIS should encourage and facilitate the organising of face-to-face
consultations from the grassroots up - making these materials and others (materials from
caucuses, NGOs, campaigns, etc.) available and ensuring that useful mechanisms for
feedback and circulation of conclusions are in place. The civil society division of the WSIS
secretariat should be mandated to support these consultations, by providing them with
information about themes and issues, by explaining procedures for ensuring that the results
of the consultations become inputs to the overall process, by facilitating the development of
networks...
This type of activities would support a decentralised approach to organising and consulting
around the issues and go a long way towards addressing inclusion of populations interested
in the issues and yet unlikely to participate in online consultations.
If the WSIS (or UNESCO) took these (and other) activities on, it would demonstrate a
committment to a broad and meaningful consultation. We should insist that they do so and
not make their lives easy by demanding an online consultation and thus offering them a
virtual escape route.
bg
_______________________________________________
Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS)
For more information see http://www.crisinfo.org/
act@crisinfo.org
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<< end of forwarded material >>
Obviously, one of the things I would like to see is a collaborative effort to make official on-line consultations meaningful and ensure that a wider public can participate in them.
Regards,
Judyth
##########################################################
Judyth Mermelstein "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC <espresso@e-scape.net>
##########################################################
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once
they have exhausted all other alternatives." (Abba Eban)
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