[WSIS CS-Plenary] Shirin Ebadi Nomination - Deadline for supports

[Aidan White]

I am not sure if it is authoritarian to hope that nominated speakers
have in mind the proirities of civil society groups before they speak,
but I am certain that brief time allocated for speakers will not be long
enough to deal with all of the issues that our groups want to take up. I
don't think necessarily that Ms Ebadi will be able to address all the
concerns of the media caucus, far less the specific priorities of the
people in journalism that I represent, but we support her nomination
precisely because we believe that she will focus on broader issues that
concern all of us and by doing so she may be able to redirect the focus
of the WSIS towards the CS agenda. We should let her to get on with it
in the way she sees fit without providing a crib sheet or checklist of
issues that have to be covered. I must say that Rony Koven's point on
this is well put. 

Aidan White


-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On
Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola
Sent: 17 October 2005 09:45
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Shirin Ebadi Nomination - Deadline for
supports

[Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire
list. Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for
specific people]

Click http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/ to access automatic translation
of this message!
_______________________________________

KovenRonald at aol.com ha scritto:
> Dear All --
> 
> Everyone of us has his hobbyhorses, favorite essential topics. I think

> it is really out of bounds for us to ask someone like Shirin Ebadi to 
> reflect them. She must be free to express what she thinks is
important.
> The authoritarian atmosphere of our limited version of "civil 
> society,"defining what is sayable and not sayable is getting truly 
> suffocating. It's time -- past time -- for us to tell people that they

> are free to say what they think and decide for themselves what they 
> consider important.

I think you are starting from a good point but getting to wrong
conclusions.

I agree that we should not ask Ms. Ebadi to make her speech a collection
of each group's pet issues; I actually said the same just a few days ago
on a similar matter, when specific groups would require mention of their
specific issues into a generic text. Moreover, you definitely can't
treat such a high level person as if she were our spokesperson, hired to
read someone else's speech.

At the same time, people and organizations here have been spending four
years of their lives pushing some specific issues and proposals, and the
opening speech of the final Summit is an important chance to increase
such push. Chances of success for civil society campaigns are directly
related to the amount of coordination, unity and constant visibility
that is given to our proposals. Thus it would be a disaster if Ms. 
Ebadi, in her autonomy, missed some vital points or even spoke against
them - maybe just because we didn't have a chance to brief her on what
has been going on in this process.

The same applies to the other speakers, who - remember - are not there
in their personal capacity, but speaking on behalf of the entire set of
civil society participants. I wouldn't feel comfortable in hearing any
of them, say, praising President Ben Ali for his benevolent attitudes to
his people or taking stances that go against our own declaration of
principles agreed in Geneva.

I think that if we all are reasonable, we can find ways to preserve the
delicate balance between the independent thoughts of an individual and
his/her role as a representative of a much broader movement. For
example, we might schedule briefing sessions in which they listen to
everyone and present what they plan to say. We might ask them to post
drafts of their speeches for public comment, some days in advance. We
might map them to topics and ask them to subscribe to relevant caucuses
to discuss the intervention in the next couple of weeks.

I don't think these are unreasonable requests, nor attempts to "define
what is sayable or not sayable" or censor our own speakers. But if we
end up with 10 or 15 people going up to the lectern and saying just the
first thing that came up in their minds, without any kind of
coordination among themselves or with past activities, we will have
missed a huge opportunity and done quite a bad job.
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...
_______________________________________________
Plenary mailing list
Plenary at wsis-cs.org
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary