In her response to the ALAC’s draft comments on the GNSO’s proposal for a Global Outreach initiative, one Susannah Clark bemoaned the ALAC’s loss of way and the urgent need to remedy it by talking to end users without filters. See http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-global-outreach/msg00001.html If the comment rested there, one could be philosophical and treat it as fair comment in a political 3-card game. But then it went on to wax nostalgic for the good old days when the At-Large was simply bursting at its vibrant seams with all those participants. She mourned the pricked virtue that was the last ‘democratic At large elections of 2000’ and the equality of access to millions of ordinary Internet users now lost, encumbered as it were by these new and altogether pointless structures. It was this reference that shed the skin to the game. The facts tend to illuminate the author's view of 'democracy' as situational; good only when we like the results. But absent a certain emotional intelligence, one might confuse this screed with a high-minded regard for the poor unheralded Internet users of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Scratch the subtext however and what you find is the rancid swill it covers. Her real endeavour is to question the legitimacy of current actors in the ICANN community not domiciled in the United States. Its contemporary – and topical – analogue is “birtherism”. Dear Susannah should know that I, for one, shall not be presenting a pass or any other paper to buttress any claim to legitimacy. For that would be an indignity bordering on the obscene. I shall rather simply assert my unfettered right to be involved and engaged. I willingly concede that neither the ALAC nor, for that matter, the At-Large, are all that they could be. But, thankfully, they ain’t all that they “used to was”! However Susannah and fellow travelers would have you believe the golden age of the At-Large coincided with the ascendancy of a small cabal, largely domiciled in the United States, as the representatives of global Internet users. Memories, and remembrance of things past, are tricky things in and of themselves. Because our existence in time and space, our acculturation and such things define how and what we remember. In fact, these largely govern what we don’t know..or forget. They temper how we see the world. Sometimes falsely, depending on which side you find yourself. Case in point. Those halcyon days being mourned tend to discount….really forget… that a view from China or India, Tunisia and Senegal, Brazil or Venezuela, could be construed as important to the grave and heavy responsibilities of Names and Numbers policy development. In this their consciousness, the Caribbean remains a place of beaches, rum and cola only. Now, don’t get me wrong. I really don’t believe that Susannah …or the folks she seemingly memorialize…. thinks Fatimata Seye Sella, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, Charles Mok, Didier Casole, V.C.Vivekanandan and Tijani Ben Jemaa have nothing to say they are bound to respect. Not hardly. I further strongly doubt if this sentiment is singly or severally applicable to Hong Xue, Jose Ovidio Salgueiro, Edmon Carlos Dionisio Aguirre, Darlene Thompson, Fouad Bajwa, Jacqueline Morris, Edmon Chung, Dev Anand Teelucksingh, Cintra Sooknanan, Sebastien Bachollet, Evan Leibovitch, Andres Piazza, Wolf Ludwig, Lance Hinds, Rudi Vasnick and/or Baudouin Schombe. For this would be overweening and uncharitable. But what is coming thru however is a view that says in the context of names and numbers policy, these good people are illegitimate, seeing as they are not ‘elected’ by the “our” kind of end users, the ones that Susannah ‘elect’ to represent. What bothers them even more about this new set is that their collective contributions is definitively not commensurate in value with the charge to the ICANN purse. As is the usual case in the United States, the good thing is that there are thoughtful folks like Lawrence Strickland who thankfully have a different view, even if that view is tightly coupled to and designed to advance the permanent interests of the state. See http://www.ntia.doc.gov/presentations/2011/Strickling_ GigaNet_05052011.html They understand that today’s world is rendered flat by the interconnectedness of things. They further understand that what with the Internet being one of the great enablers of the ‘flattening’ process, it is not only strategic but useful to involve others in the governance arrangements, if only to preserve one global interconnected Internet. We also understand that a fragmented Internet - and all that this implies - undermines its value to all of us and is inimical to the US national security interests. Internationalizing ICANN takes some of this pressure away. What we don’t know makes for caution in our actions. But we are clear eyed that the At-Large community may very well be a fig leaf, providing cover for a whole lot of interests. And some of us know that even with this hand to play, being in the room and at the table can inure to some other interests we hold as important to our local civil societies and interests. To say it another way and with tongue firmly in cheek, we do know the difference when we feel the hand of Esau even as we hear the voice of Jacob. Our involvement, in context, is just as nuanced. Carlton Samuels ============================== Carlton A Samuels Mobile: 876-818-1799 *Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround* =============================