Re: The "global" elections way back when didn't include 1.3 million Trinidad and Tobago people, and it didn't represent me. The LACRALO represents me. When Ivan Moura Campos was elected by the Latin America and Caribbean region in the year 2000, the people of Trinidad/Tobago had a representative for their Region sitting on the ICANN Board. Now you have no representation on the Board whatsoever and yet you blithely choose to believe that the LACRALO "represents" you. The LACRALO only represents you to an Advisory Committee that has no power at all. If you wish to take comfort in your powerlessness just because there is now a modicum of outreach to your community, then go ahead and be comforted. But don't expect the rest of us that still respect the White Paper principles to agree to a Board that isn't properly balanced with at-large directors seated on half of that body. Your model of "participation" instead of "representation" has been roundly rejected by almost all North American Civil Society organizations that won't lend their good names to a fraudulent effort. You don't see CDT, or EFF, or EPIC joining your charade... they still have principles. --- "Jacqueline A. Morris" <jam@jacquelinemorris.com> wrote:
The "global" elections way back when didn't include 1.3 million Trinidad and Tobago people, and it didn't represent me. The LACRALO represents me. My people's voices are raised in it, and listened to in it. I think that the more representative of the global population ALAC gets, with more and more people having a say via their regions, the more likely the At-Large is to have more say on the global IG stage (not just ICANN).
I have a different view to yours because I believe that there are many people who would remain disenfranchised by such an approach. How would the telecentres and community groups in the rural areas of Trinidad and Tobago and other developing nations be able to participate? Now, the RALO includes ALSes that go out to those areas, talk to them and bring back their concerns, issues and views. ICANN's RALO structure has reached out to us, in a way that nothing else ever did, except the WSIS.
So, yes, I am willing to work with this structure, and I will continue to focus on getting full global participation in the IG structures, including ICANN. I can see us having influence via this mechanism. I haven't seen ANY suggestion coming from you that focuses on allowing the other millions and millions and millions of Internet users who do not live in the developed world to participate on any sort of equal basis with the Internet elite who have been involved since the year dot. Talking about second-class status - we didn't have any status under the previous systems. Second class is a step up, and the next step will take us to first class. The review is an opportunity, not something that requires us to sit passively by and allow others to determine our path. It's an opportunity for the At Large to look at the years past, and the future - to decide where we want to go, who we want to represent and in what way.
Sometimes it seems to me as if some people just want to roll back the clock to the days when all of this was a small and closed club, with people who all thought alike. Well, it isn't that anymore. It's diverse, (and hopefully rapidly getting more and more diverse) and we have different cultures and different views and different ways of doing things. And we will think differently. And all of those different views require respect. I try to understand and work with cultures that are different to mine. I may not always succeed, but I try. I don't see that consideration and respect coming from all of us in the At Large as yet. I hope it comes soon, otherwise we will definitely have problems moving ahead to what seems to be a similar final goal.
And that would be a great pity.
Jacqueline
____________________________________________________________________________________ Need Mail bonding? Go to the Yahoo! Mail Q&A for great tips from Yahoo! Answers users. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396546091