Re: [alac] President's Committee on Strategy, and ICANN legitimacy
Roberto Gaetano ha scritto: FYI, the Board had discussed points 1, 2 and 3, and most probably will not accept as given facts the recommendation of the committee (as was feared in other contribution to the discussion). This is good news - of course it would have saved much criticism if someone from the Board had made this statement in public in Wellington or at least in Marrakech :-) ALAC's criticism is always necessary. The call for disbandment of the PSC is, however, not criticism, but something else, that will simply be yet another proclaim to the wind, without any whatsoever effect in the reality, You might be right, but in my naive view, if we say that the PSC should be disbanded and provide good reasons, we will either be listened to, or be provided the explanation for the difference in views. This did not happen, honestly, unless I am victim of a deafening syndrome which leads me not to hear what I don't like to hear, which might always be possible (removal is one of the basic mechanisms of human psychology). But well before Paul came up with this idea (e.g., just after WSIS-2 in Vancouver, and in some way even before, I think even in Luxembourg) we started to say that ICANN had to create a sort of reform committee in an open way including everyone etc. - and we got no answer, then we were announced this thing, ex post, without involvement. I think that's a good reason to say: no, this is not what we wanted, please get back and do the other thing instead. But just keep in mind that the Board must sinthetize the different opinions of the ICANN community. While it is absolutely true that the voice of the individual users is underrepresented, to declare that the users point of view has to prevail over every other opinion because "[t]he public is not just one element among many Internet stakeholders, it is the citizenry for whose benefit this whole edifice is constructed" sounds to my ears very much like the leninist proclaims on "power to the soviets" rather than a serious attempt to build a common house. Agree - at the same time, perhaps if we saw a little more attention by the Board and staff in involving our constituency, we would be less aggressive. I still don't understand why Paul didn't come to us saying: look, I've decided I need this Committee, what do you think of it? Do you have suggestions? He rather put us in front of the accomplished fact... and so you can't be surprised if we react so strongly. It very much depends on what our strategy is. Do we want to modify or kill the system? If we want to kill the system, yes, it was a mistake to provide names. We should have an Hezbollah-like opposition to whatever agreement can be reached, because our purpose is to buils a (yet another) world order. If, on the other hand, we want to modify the system to address more the user community needs, it was a *good thing* to take the opportunity to provide names. And we can criticize the process and the outcome, but our primary duty is to support Pierre in presenting reasonable proposals to the committee, that can be put on the table for discussion. And I speak as representative of ALAC to the Board, when too often I had to defend the undefendable, like "fire the .com negotiating team". The ALAC representative to any committee, to have any chance of achieving something, has to go on the table with something workable for a compromise. You should have learned from the vendors in Marrakech that you show up at the table with a rather extreme position, such as "fire the .com negotiating team", to get out of it with something ;-) I think that ALAC has survived for too long in keeping its foot in two shoes. We all agree that the current situation is not ideal, but we have different strategies for the future. It happened with the self-assessment, it happens again with the PSC, and it happened with a lot of subjects in between. It is now high time to make a definite political choice on whether our way is reform or revolution. And make an ALAC official statement, otherwise our outreach program is going to remain foggy. And what if (I'm not convinced this is the right way to go, I'm just considering it) we realize that, after all, we represent a constituency with broad differences in view, and so we have to live with the fact that some of us push for reform while others push for revolution? This would possibly push us to stop working by consensus and start working by majorities, so I don't think I like it, and also it would become very important the selection of ALAC members, with the Nomcom being de facto able to determine whether the majority lies with reform or with revolution. I think I prefer the current model, however. But I agree that we have to work on our own internal procedures. My point is only that politics is not religion. You don't go very far with few dogmatic statements, you only manage to have a religious war in which, most of the time, the users in name of which the war is declared will not get very much out of it. And sometimes, to get your hands durty, day after day, is the only way to achieve results. You don't get in history books, but you achieve results, step by step. This is actually what we have been doing for years, while getting extensive criticism from people like Milton or Danny or Karl, for example. I still think it's the right way to go, but, at the same time, compromise positions are destined to be wiped away when the conflict radicalizes... in some cases you do have to stand where you are and defend your line for a while, before starting to compromise again. -- vb. [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<----- http://bertola.eu.org/ <- Prima o poi...
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