In many respects, the WSIS has been a farce from the beginning. For
example, there is the notion that there could be a "common vision" of
the information society, that a "win-win" situation might arise from
"multi-stakeholder" relationships among civil society, governments
and the private sector under conditions of neoliberalism, that civil
society would participate on an "equal footing," etc. Additionally,
as some of us who are WSIS "old-timers" may recall the various
"families" were imposed upon us by the CS Secretariat, and several of
these do not fit any definition of civil society: for example, local
government authorities, which were put into CS because they didn't
have any other place to put them, media lobbyists like the World
Press Freedom Committee, and perhaps most of all, the biggest joke,
the "multi-stakeholder" family, which effectively allowed those from
governments and the private sector to be members of CS. Of course,
that was on top of the plethora of BINGOS and GRINGOS that were
hastily put together by the private sector and governments. The
"multi-stakeholder family" largely was a project of persons who had
ideological, and often, personal and selfish reasons to be in a
family that could not be defined as oppositional to neoliberalism
(that is, they are looking to be paid consultants, etc. to business
and government).
Although I was ready to give Tunis a chance, the deterioration of an
already deplorable human rights record, in addition to the behavior
of persons representing Ben Ali during the prepcoms, has led me to
take the personal position that I will not support any of this or the
above by going to Tunis. The UN should be imposing sanctions on the
country (and perhaps on the US as well), not holding summits there.
Moreover, the summit will not be worthwhile if members of grassroots
and small CS organizations cannot attend, and most cannot attend
because Tunisia didn't come through with the money to assist those
with low-incomes. I doubt that they ever intended to do so. As "head
of delegation" for Union for Democratic Communications, I will
continue to register our members if they want to go because I'm the
only one who can do that. But, I am boycotting the Tunis summit, and
I hope that others will do the same. All of the real action happens
at the prepcoms anyway, and these have been disasters during this
phase, as might have been predicted.
In any case, every single UN conference to date has yielded grand
declarations of principles and plans of action but, in fact, has been
followed by almost no meaningful action (see Fourth World Conference
in Beijing).
One last note: with all due respect to Gabi, whose opinions I share
in many ways, civil society is supposed to be oppositional.
Therefore, I don't understand how protest and resistance becomes a
problem for civil society (unless we look at the protest and
resistance of the embedded Tunis detractors). Sometimes, exclusion,
whether self-imposed or imposed on us, can help to create an
oppositional civil society. In my view, one of the problems that has
plagued WSIS over the past few years is that many of the "leaders"
have been too acquiescent (you should have seen the first draft of
the CS "alternative declaration" written by about half a dozen of us,
which had a clear critical edge compared to the watered down one that
finally came to represent "us," refusing to mention the word
"neoliberalism," etc.).
Under these circumstances, I'm thinking that the notion of working on
our own agendas should involve maintaining an oppositional
stance--that is, until the other two "stakeholders" stop trying to
instrumentalize CS for purposes of neoliberalism (the latter being
the working definition of multi-stakeholderism at the moment).
Regards,
Lisa
At 1:34 AM +0900 10/6/05, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>----------------------------------------------
>Disruption of communica-ch meeting
>http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/795.htm
>----------------------------------------------
>
>Relatively typical example of the Tunisification of the UN. Special only
>because it shows a WSIS secretariat official participating in disruption,
>not just the usual trouble-makers.
>video http://www.worldsummit2003.de/download_en/Moncef_Achour_prepcom3.AVI
>Download letter to secretariat for detailed account.
>
>I gather this meeting was held privately because the human rights caucus
>could not meet publicly without participants getting personally attacked.
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>Community Media Working Group Meetings impossible
>--------------------------------------------------
>
>The community media working group is the only (if narrow) platform for 'our
>media' type organizations at the WSIS, and has been rather successful in
>pushing community radio so far (coordination list:
>http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cm).
>
>However, it cannot meet anymore, as the convenor is being followed and
>hassled for his open criticism of the host government. An attempted meeting
>at PrepCom3 was flooded with people who admitted to knowing nothing about
>community media (They thought "community" referred to "European Community"!)
>But they refused to leave, and continued talking loudly and off-topic. (The
>same people and techniques as in most other civil society meetings.)
>
>--------------------------------------------
>Should we fight united with 'their media' ?
>--------------------------------------------
>
>Under these circumstances, strange bedfellowships emerge:
>
>http://campaigns.ifex.org/tmg/news.html
>
>'Their media' (including our traditional non-friends, the world press
>freedom committee) and 'our' community media champion AMARC fight together
>for "freedom of expression" in the host country.
>
>Forgotten the battle fought in the media caucus until recently: 'their
>freedom' vs 'ours,' corporate rights vs communication rights, their media vs
>ours. Perhaps not a bad thing to fight together against censorship? An
>important strategic alliance? If the fight is won and this authoritarian
>government eases up on censorship and media control, perhaps the corporate
>media and professional journalists will remember us as friends and fighters
>for a common cause? This seems to be the AMARC strategy. Though history
>gives us little reason for optimism...
>
>So back to square one, the freedom of journalists and private media? And
>hope we will get a slice of the freedom pie later? There has to be a better
>way.
>
>We started to revive the discussion on the role of our media in a renewed
>media democratization agenda. Let's continue this overdue task in the
>ourmedia network.
>
>Gabi
--
Lisa McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Mass Communication & Women's Studies
Editor, Feminist Media Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, M.A. Program in Mass Communication
Union for Democratic Communications Representative,
World Summit on the Information Society
Mass Communication
Williams Hall
Miami University-Ohio
Oxford, OH 45056
USA
Tele: 513-529-3547
Fax: 513-529-1835
|
