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

[conchita poncini]

I agree with Jacqueline that each Caucus provide a brief for Ms. Ebadi so
that she will have a feel of what CS wants.  It will then be foro her to
pick and choose in order to have a commonb  thread that would run across her
statement.

conchita




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jacqueline Morris" <jam at jacquelinemorris.com>
To: <plenary at wsis-cs.org>
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Shirin Ebadi Nomination - Deadline for
supports


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Vittorio
I agree with you - maybe the easiest way would be to prepare a
briefing paper for the speakers, that explains the issues and the CS
positions. Then we would have to trust them to speak appropriately.
Jacqueline

On 10/17/05, Vittorio Bertola <vb at bertola.eu.org> wrote:
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> _______________________________________
>
> 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...
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--
Jacqueline Morris
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