[AfrICANN-discuss] Re: [bestbits] Re: [africs-ig] Civil Society speaker: IGF Opening ceremony - Nnenna

[McTim]

On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 4:35 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> I must say that I disagree with a public endorsement of the IGF as "THE"
> whatever… It may be "THE" something or other but only for lack of a better
> alternative.  I can't do the reckoning for this IGF (the way the program is
> set up) but by my count from the last IGF the (CS and to a slightly lesser
> degree for the other stakeholders) presentations in the Workshops and
> particularly plenaries consisted to an overwhelming and truly astonishing
> degree of the same half dozen CS characters (lets call them the MAG crowd)
> over and over again to the point of exhaustion, likely of them but certainly
> of anyone wanting to hear any fresh (and/or critical) perspectives. (Is it
> the case that a world with roughly 2 billion Internet users can only turn up
> a half dozen people to speak on its behalf at one yearly gabfest after
> another?)

FYI, There are more CS folks at the IGF than any other stakeholder group.

>
>
>
> There may be a "dialogue" going on, but if it is a dialogue it is one that
> is stretching now over decades rather than (for example bridging
> generations, or social or economic divides, or cultural backgrounds and
> interests) and one of the reasons that the Brazil initiative is required and
> is so challenging is that it (at least to this point) isn't confined to the
> usual cast of (unrepresentative) characters.
>
>
>
> One fervently hopes that it will not be captured by the IGF and that it does
> lead to a meaningful set of on-going processes that actually address
> significant and critical issues rather than wraps them in repetitiive (and
> dare I say deeply suspect) cotton batten and most importantly looks towards
> democratic processes as the basis for in its initiatives rather than
> "Multistakeholder" ones, upon which we are still awaiting any useful
> definition or set of norms and procedures.

You may find this useful reading:

http://www.internetsociety.org/sites/default/files/bp-msfinalreport-20132010-en.pdf