[AfrICANN-discuss] Re: [cctld-discuss] Reminder comments on Draft Report WG ICANN Regions

[Nigel Roberts]

> Members of AFTLD are gravely concerned that the regions issue may 
> lead to partitioning of Africa and members have indicated that they 
> will act to oppose any such re-partitioning of the Africa region. 
> Africa has a signifcant membership base in the ccNSO. Members aspire 
> that Africa continues to be represented by one continent 
> organisations like AfriNIC, AfNOG and AfTLD.
> 
Actually, AFRICA is not the problem.  Ignoring .NA for a minute (I know 
that's hard!), some regions of the world do cross geographcial continents.

The Arab region is one, and has constituent parts in Africa (the 
Magrheb, N. Africa) as well as in other "Regions".

Cultural diversity demands that ICANN /must/ take account of the 
legitimate aspirations of /all/ groupings, not just those which fit into 
an American neo-colonial viewpoint.

It's actually quite offensive for ICANN, for example, to insist that the 
Caymans, Turks and Caicos and Monsterrat are in Europe, even if did 
allow the gerrymandering launce of the ccNSO. (NB. I'm not attacking the 
current ccNSO, just the process by which it was launched, where two of 
the five founding menbers of the European region were microstates, one 
not even in Europe).

If the Channel Islands weren't geographically in Europe, but were forced 
to be becuase of a consitutional link to the UK, we'd not be happy.

I think the old ccTLD constituency idea of self-organising grouping was 
an extremely good one .. that way there could be Oceania as a distinct 
entitity for example, or a world=wide region of 'tiny states' which have 
more in common with each other...

(Lights touchpaper and stands back).