[Chapter-delegates] How do we incorporate China and other countries that are different?

Sun Feb 21 21:57:29 PST 2016

Ricardo is right; North-South is imprecise. So is rich and poor. So is
"America and Allies" and "The Rest of the World." In official Washington
circles, the phrase for the other side is "The group of 77," reflecting the
majority vote at the WCIT. But that isn't a USSR plot; I quoted the
American official, Larry Strickling, as defining the split. From many
people's point of view, it's power politics between East and West.

That ISOC has chapters around the world is a major achievement. Kathy has
done a great job growing the organization.
My hope is that the ISOC chapters outside the U.S. are given some share of
the decision making on policy, now led by a few in D.C. ISOC under Kathy
has advanced ISOC to "Democratic Centralism." That's a big improvement -
prior management didn't even try to give others a voice. The next step
should be a move to "bottom-up," where decisions can also be made more
widely.

This is more than just my belief in democracy whenever possible. Too many
of the ISOC decisionmakers showed no understanding of the issues the
Africans cared about. I thought that would change under Kathy, but the
chapters still are secondary. Compare the African Declaration of Rights
with the central ISOC policies.

Personally, I'm not very interested in the revised cold war between Russia
and the U.S. My main interest is bringing a better Internet to everyone,
especially those without money. Most of my political effort, incidentally,
goes to making the Internet more affordable in the U.S., my own country.
I've sick of folks in the U.S. telling Africa and Asia how to  run their
Internet, especially because very, very few of the Americans understand the
needs of African networks as well as the tens of thousands of Africans and
Asians actually building the networks.

Anyone who has gone to International meeting like WCIT or the Plenipot, or
reads the official U.S. discussion, knows there is a clear divide. Sides
occasionally change; Danny Sepulveda's great coup was splitting the
Brazilians from the other BRICS.

Ultimately, change in ISOC has to come from outside the U.S. I hope that's
how it plays out.

Dave

On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 11:56 PM, Ricardo Holmquist <rihogris at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dave,
> Do you mind to change the speech from North - South to some other term.
> Russia and China are both in the North, and there are a lot of ISOC
> chapters in the south, including Australia, all of South America, and some
> of Africa. For this matters keeping the developed north - poor undeveloped
> south is just playing the old URSS game of polarization, and this world
> changed 25 years ago.
>
> By the way, we have chapters in four of the BRICS countries, that might be
> a way to approximate to the other one.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ricardo Holmquist
>
>
> On Sunday, 21 February 2016, Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dave,
>>
>> though this may puncture a balloon, there has been at least one Chinese
>> citizen, national and resident in the ICANN Board.
>>
>> Yours,
>>
>> Alejandro Pisanty
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Kathy and folk, with respect
>>>
>>> Using the name Internet Society of CHina is tasteless, but there are
>>> much more important issues in this discussion.
>>>
>>> China has twice as many Internet users as the U.S. and the gap is
>>> growing at 5-8M users per year. Africa is about to pass 315M Internet
>>> users, the entire population of the United States. (Cisco data.) Cheap
>>> smartphones are bringing two *billion* more people to the Internet. We
>>> all think that's a great thing.
>>>
>>> *I do not believe Internet governance (or ISOC) can be effective with
>>> the majority of world Internet users excluded.* As Ambassador Phil
>>> Verveer said to me the night of the ITU WCIT vote, "We must build bridges."
>>>
>>> *It's time for a Nixon Goes to China move for the Internet. *Kathy,
>>> Vint or whoever is leading us should be finding a way to work with all
>>> nations. Bob Kahn, an Internet Society founder, might be one natural link.
>>> He spoke at that conference in China, as did several other Internet Society
>>> supporters.
>>>
>>> I'm not blind to how many people starved in the 1950's in China, what
>>> happened at Tiananmen Square, or the speech limitations in China today. I'm
>>> also not blind to what America did in Vietnam or the $billions being spent
>>> to buy the U.S. elections.
>>>
>>> I'm sure we all can make lawyer-like arguments here. But it's missing
>>> the key issue. We need to solve the North-South divide about the Internet.
>>>
>>> In Dubai at the WCIT a few hours before that vote, I asked Larry
>>> Strickling why the U.S. was fighting so hard over what seemed to me some
>>> very minor issues, at most of symbolic value. He looked at me and asked,
>>> "Dave, do you want Russia or China to be running the Internet?" We both
>>> went back to work.
>>>
>>> Later, I realized I should have said, "Of course I want Russia and China
>>> to have a meaningful role. If we continue to exclude them, ultimately the
>>> Internet will split."
>>>
>>> I did not know at that time that no Chinese were on the Board of ICANN
>>> because that would not be acceptable to the U.S.
>>>
>>> The Internet Society should be leading the way. Excluding China - and so
>>> many others - I believe will fail.
>>>
>>> --------------
>>>
>>> Which doesn't say anything about whether this is the right way to handle
>>> who is a civil society group. That's a side issue. The big question is
>>> whether the ICANN board and the decision makers of all important groups
>>> here see more than one side of the North South divide.
>>>
>>> Dave Burstein.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Editor, Fast Net News, Net Policy News and DSL Prime
>>> Author with Jennie Bourne  DSL (Wiley) and Web Video: Making It Great,
>>> Getting It Noticed (Peachpit)
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
>> Facultad de Química UNAM
>> Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
>> +52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD
>> +525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO SMS +525541444475
>> Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
>> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
>> Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
>> http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
>> Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
>> ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
>> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
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> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>

-- 
Editor, Fast Net News, Net Policy News and DSL Prime
Author with Jennie Bourne  DSL (Wiley) and Web Video: Making It Great,
Getting It Noticed (Peachpit)
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