[Chapter-delegates] On exclusion (was Re: ISOC nominees must discuss ISOC's exclusion, financial support for chapters, board independence, finding waste)

[Alan Levin]

Hi all,

Awesome thread... thanks Dave.  I agree completely with your sentiments.
Unfortunately the way the restructuring went in 2001 (I think they refer to
it as the Salt Lake City meeting), I don't think it's really possible...

Just as a note, I have spent time with the Libyan and Chinese Internet
Society and I also represent the Internet Society of South Africa which are
all non-affiliated to "The Internet Society" based in the US.  I do believe
that we all have very similar goals and objectives, connecting and
educating those that are not - etc...

On the other hand I have seen first hand what happens when "localising" or
"globalising" Internet governance. We all live in different countries and
have to adhere to our local laws. The Europeans seem to have won at
affecting IG. The Africans and especially the South Africans have lost, our
names and numbers are in major governance crises  :(

Make sure if you are going to appoint people from these 'other' countries
that you have done the best due diligence and that you are not appointing
for the sake of skin colour. Oh dear...

hth,

Alan



On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 4:49 PM Andrew Sullivan via Chapter-delegates <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> I have some reflections on Dave's posting, which I share here so that
> you understand my way of thinking about these issues.  This mail does
> not represent an Internet Society policy position as would be
> determined by our usual PDP.
>
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 11:19:03PM -0400, Dave Burstein via
> Chapter-delegates wrote:
> >
> > *Should the majority of the Internet be effectively excluded from the
> ISOC
> > board and leadership?* Asia, Africa, and Latin America - the global
> south -
> > now have twice as many Internet users as the US and allies in the global
> > north. (See The Color Of The Net Has Changed
> > <
> https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1015-the-color-of-the-net-has-changed
> >)
> > India now has more Internet users than the US; China, about three times
> as
> > many. 7 of 12 trustees are from the US and Canada. Only two of the twelve
> > are from the global south. China is 25%-40% of the net, depending on the
> > measure. The total exclusion of China is an unacknowledged policy. The
> > Internet is for everyone?
>
> I will not comment on the general issue about the country origin of
> our Trustees except to note that I believe the nomcom has emphasised
> this issue in the past when attempting to recruit people who will
> stand to be Trustees.  I do take issue with the description of China,
> however, because I think it is inaccurate.
>
> China is not, in my view, actually 25-40% of the Internet, and I do not
> think we have an unacknowledged policy.  Instead I believe we follow
> an explicit policy of the Government of China.  They have decided to
> use Internet protocols but to do so in a way that does not permit
> independent networks to interoperate freely, in the way that the
> Internet is designed.  Instead, China runs a tightly-controlled
> catanet with a gateway to the rest of the Internet.  In my opinion, it
> is much more similar to China Online (cf. America Online in the 1990s)
> than it is to Internet access properly understood.
>
> Sovereign governments have the right to regulate activities within
> their own countries.  But we should not pretend that countries that
> have explicitly chosen to prevent internetworking among independent
> networks are part of the Internet.  They're not.  Internetworking
> _requires_ that networks be able to announce routes: that's literally
> how the inter-networking happens.  That is simply not allowed among
> the networks in China, and so I think it is entirely mistaken to talk
> about the Internet in China.  It's a network.  It's an online system.
> But it's only kind-of the Internet, and it is drifting ever further
> from the Internet.  I believe that is lamentable.  I also think it is
> extremely dangerous that they are promoting this approach to
> networking to the rest of the world, sometimes with considerable
> success.
>
> Furthermore, the Internet Society is not allowed to work in China.
> China set up http://www.isc.org.cn/english/ as a direct attack on the
> Internet Society, and it does not play by Internet Society rules or,
> indeed, acknowledge the misappropriation of the Internet Society brand
> inside China.
>
> I do not believe that it would be in any way appropriate for the
> Internet Society to have a board member subject to a sovereign
> government that is so actively hostile to the goals and values of the
> Internet Society.  I believe we do need to work to make sure the
> Internet is for everyone, and that means we need to ensure that those
> who are appointed to the Board of Trustees are in the legal position
> to direct me to act in the best interests of the Internet, rather than
> some other networking approach that is almost but not quite like the
> real Internet.
>
> Best regards,
>
> A
>
> --
> Andrew Sullivan
> President & CEO, Internet Society
> sullivan at isoc.org
> +1 517 885 3587
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>

-- 
Alan Levin
----------------------------------
Chairman ISOC-ZA
+27 21 4882820 (ddi)
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