Dear Chun, Toshi, PatchA, Sasha, Adam, Izumi and others on the list,
I apologise sincerely for the long silence I have kept too....I have been
just read through all of the correspondence that I have not kept up with
and it have been impressed with the flaming discussion that we have had
going here. I will respond to the various emails that I have been struck
by in sequence...
First, a para from Chun's email [Communication 493] on this list:
>My worry is that still PrepCom II is not opening up the draft documents
>for principles and action plan. So, precisely speaking, we don't know what
>could be the main focus for debate. By and large all our previous
>documents are very comprehensive and general. So if we should make some
>comments for their draft documents published in PrepCom II, then we should
>discuss again for all those concrete items. Of course, still our consensus
>idea has already been expressed in all those previous documents.
Now that we have the Non-Paper put out by Sammasekou, we do have a document
that we can critique and provide our inputs to. However, other than your
thoughts, Chun, and Al's appeal for someone to write a response, we
actually have not heard sufficient comments to work together on a specific
response. , Frankly, I believe that it would be hard for us to gain
consensus for several reasons:
i) we are still hammering away at our positioning vis-a-vis fundamental
issues as evidenced by our discussions on one statement in the Tokyo
declaration;
ii) our unity as an Asian group is strongly and naturally mediated by the
fact that we come from different political leanings and have very different
relationships and degrees of comfort (or discomfort) with the state,
private sector, the international institutions such as the World Bank and ADB.
iii) We come from different vantage points, experiences and national
realities, even as activists working on various human rights issues, and
therefore we do not come at it from similar angles. I appreciate Norbert's
input in trying to explain why the word "never" against threatening freedom
of expression is such a complex terrain. We had this same problem during
World Conference against Racism (WCAR), where anti-racism groups based in
Europe were fighting for more language that would enable some action to be
taken against ultra-nationalist and right wing groups, while communications
activists in the South were saying that we needed freedom of expression
preserved because it was/is so disrespected and mostly disregarded as a
fundmental in society.
In other words, I feel that rather than trying to artificially create a
sense of unity and "preordained harmony" (so well put, Toshi), and thus
neatly fitting into that completely chaotic space, known as Civil Society,
offered to us in this UN process, we should see what it is that we can
agree on in this grouping. We may seek out other alliances with other more
like-minded individuals and groups, in trying to push for certain specific
concepts in the document that we may not be able to agree with here.
This does not mean that this group has not integrity....it just means that
given our diversity, we recognise that there may be a limit as to how much
consensus on the finer details of the document we can reach, and keep
working as hard as we have to understand the other's view points and
political perspectives.
As several people have already mentioned, we have several documents that
reflect our general consensus of key issues from this region. My
suggestion would be that these be used as a guide in our lobbying as of
now, and try to work in a more systematic way after the Prep Comm 2, to
figure out which areas we are mostly in agreement with, and then work on
those together as an Asian Caucus.
Those of us who are actually going to be at the Prep Comm 2 can use the
WSIS: an Asian response, the WSIS workshop at the CONGO meeting, and the
Tokyo statement as documents in guiding our responses on behalf of the
Asian Caucus, and also be guided by these very animated and useful
discussions that we have had here thus far as well.
and finally on this point:
>Also, even in the case of CS coordinating group PrepCom II statement, its
>basic character is not so different - too abstract and very general. So,
>rather, I think, when we would get the first draft documents of PrepCom
>II we should more effectively discuss on those among Asian NGOs. Email
>list is most easy way available, but in some cases, website function like
>list archive and bulletin board system could be more effective. Therefore,
>I propose Outreach group to develop such communication ways for
>effectively gathering Asian NGOs' voices in PrepCom II. It should be done
>as soon as possible.
I just wanted to respond to this point of setting up improved ways of
communicating. I think the Outreach Group has been working on the improved
design and functionality of the WSIS-Asia website. I am sure this will be
taken into consideration by PatchA, Aileen, Gaurab and others who are
working on enhancing the website.
In the meantime, I suggest that those who are going to be at the Prep Comm
2 to decide amongst yourselves on who can come up with a daily report to
this list, so that those off-site can try to keep up with the nuances of
the discussions in Geneva and help perhaps in the developing of language to
be submitted as response.
That's it for now. I submit this message with respect, and hope that you
will understand it as an attempt to help us in our process. I will follow
with some specific comments on the Non-Paper.
Susanna