[Chapter-delegates] It's in the wild..

[President ISOC-KH]

On 03/26/2012 01:56 AM, Elena Zvarici wrote:
> More about Paul Beringer's appointment now on Slashdot:
>
> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/03/23/2324224/isoc-hires-mpaa-executive-paul-beringer#comments
>
> Elena
> Isoc România

The many words vouching for or defending the personal integrity of Paul 
Beringer seem to miss one important point of public discourse. Critical 
voices may be completely wrong, but they are voiced because of a 
perception of what the appointment of Paul Beringer signals.

I want to explain this with reference to some discussions in our part of 
the world. When, in 2003, Dato Seri Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi was 
inaugurated as Prime Minister of Malaysia, he pointed to the important 
role of perceptions held by the public - which may or may not conform to 
reality - but are nevertheless extremely important for the political 
situation of a country.

Dato Seri Syed Hamid Albar, as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia, 
took up the role of perceptions during a Meeting of the Commission of 
Eminent Persons of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, in 
January 2005. He observed: “World-wide, the image of Islam and Muslims 
has suffered, primarily as a result of the perception of association 
with terrorism and poverty. Not only reality, but also its perception – 
right or wrong – has serious consequences.”

Walda Roseman wrote: “We had anticipated that Paul's brief time with 
MPAA could raise some concerns, so we have thoroughly vetted Paul with 
regard to both his personal and professional beliefs...”

All very good – but I cannot remember to have seen any considerations 
published to preempt these anticipated concerns, and the resulting 
perception of ISOC.

So the image of ISOC has suffered, because the appointment of a former 
officer of the Motion Picture Association of America created a certain 
perception about ISOC - right or wrong - and the global ISOC office did 
not do much to help to overcome this perception.

Similarly, the perception of having a high ranking person from China on 
a main panel of the April Geneva meetings without public explanation had 
created a similar perception problem. At that time, I had raised some 
questions, asking for explanations on this list (which never received a 
response – almost a normal experience by now), because of a growing 
Chinese participation in the Cambodian ICT world. Based on a press 
report from today, I can add the information that the owners of all 
venues providing Internet or phone access - internet cafes and guest 
houses - have been instructed to install security cameras and to record 
the identity of all users “to crack down on terrorism.”

Well, maybe some of us get only the wrong perceptions.

Norbert Klein
President
ISOC Cambodia Chapter