Fwd: Re: [gnso-idn-wg] Issues list item

[Tan Tin Wee]

As much as it is Avri's concern about anything that would give a
government  or a govt sponsored organisation control over a script/
alphabet, it is equally my concern too, about anything doesn't give
any say in IDN TLDs rollout to an entity that is elected by a process
from millions of people who speak a similar language and use the same
script.

One doesn't have to look far to find examples.
Look at how the Unicode standard is not
a standard for a number of languages/scripts, simply because it
failed to engage country authorities and other groups of experts
in making decisions that impact specific communities of people
negatively.

Take Unicode for Tamil, still deadlocked between the consortium
standard, the plethora of local standards, the Tamil Nadu standards
vs standards widely used by Tamil diaspora, vs local software developers
and industry giants like Microsoft...
Take Khmer Unicode, Thai unicode, etc. vs local deployments.

So there has to be a balance here. Whatever it is, failure to
take governments seriously or taking an adversarial approach
to governments or govt sponsored organisations in the matter of
language and scripts is a recipe for rapid failure, international
furore, and embarrassment at the naivette of governance
wannabees in the new world order of the Internet.

IDN TLD rollout and deployment must involve constituencies
who have elected governments to look after issues of general
concern, whether it be the Korean people, Korean govt and
Korean Hangul, or the Japanese majority worldwide, the Japanese
govt and its designated authorities and the Japanese
Hiragana and Katakana, or the Thai people , the Thai govt and
HE the Thai King on matters pertaining to the Thai script,
or the Middle Eastern govts/kingdoms on the Arabic script,
etc.

I was associated with the formation of MINC and our approach
in the past has been to engage as many constituencies as possible
by facilitating language/script group formation by the people
for the people who speak the language or use the script, NOT by
arbitrarily imposing any preconceived worldview, system, ideal,
principles on them and their language/script for we recognise
that one Internet size doesn't fit all, and we respect their
right of self-determination in the new Internet frontier.

Just as ICANN formulated constituencies at the outset, it is
probably time to form language/script constituencies by taking
the cue from MINC, and building on the language/script groups
which we have help to form, rather than start from scratch.
Once formed, let them make their own decisions and accept
and respect their choices, insofar as they do not disrupt
the decisions and choices of others. If they do, this is where
ICANN coordination can interject, in collaboration with other
international groups, and intervene to harmonize any conflicting
decisions or choices.

Rather than tie ourselves in knots trying to solve the grand
unified theory, the one-size-fits-all principle of IDN TLDs
for all the diversity of human scripts and languages and their
complex interplays, and the sensitivities and politics associated
with them, I would recommend some degree of subsidiarity in the
processes.


bestrgds
tin wee


Mawaki Chango wrote:
> Note: forwarded message attached.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [gnso-idn-wg] Issues list item
> From: Mawaki Chango <ki_chango at yahoo.com>
> Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:31:33 -0800 (PST)
> To: gnso-idn-wg at icann.org
> > To: gnso-idn-wg at icann.org
> Hi,
> --- Avri Doria <avri at psg.com> wrote:
>> My concern is anything that would give a government, or a
>> government
>> sponsored organization, control over a script/alphabet.
>>
>> I know that I may be appear to be contracting myself with two
>> different positions:
>>
>> - one that the language community should be protected from loss of
>>
>> the their naming resources to Northern business interests
>> - that governments should not be in the position of deciding on the
>>
>> appropriateness of an application for IDN TLD or SLD
>
> I guess governements may be just another organization being part of
> their language community. In that case, ICANN could rely on its
> consensus building and decision making procedures, paying careful
> attention to what governements have to say. This, in my humble view,
> should not require the argument of sovereignty.
>
>> That leaves the idea of the language community having some say.
>> but
>> the notion of language commnuinty is still somewhat unclear to me
>> if
>> we remove all notions of sovereignty.  Not only does ICANN not have
>> a
>> construct, similar perhaps to constituencies, to cover language
>> communities, but I know of no way of defining membership in a
>> community (e.g. questions such as: is speaking enough, or reading,
>> or
>> writing?  does someone need to be a native speaker/reader/writer?
>> does the inability to read preclude membership?  if one emigrates
>> from the predominant land of the language do they lose their
>> membership in the community? does learning a language bring one
>> into
>> the linguistic community? if so how much does one need to learn to
>>
>> gain entry into the language community? if a company hires someone
>>
>> who is a meber of the linguistic community do they gain 'rights'
>> within that linguistic community?).
>>
>> The quandary I find myself stuck in is finding a balance that
>> protects the potential (developing nation) registrant from
>> exploitation, without developing/supporting notions of linguistic
>> sovereignty or investing new levels of authority on ICANN
>> processes.
>
> Yeah, plus score of metaphysical questions that can be asked about
> identity, etc. But unfortunately, we can't afford that luxury, nor
> that of micro-managing all the related issues. Some simpler ideas we
> may keep in mind along the way include:
>
> - the cultural variable is an essential component of any definition
> of linguistic community;
>
> - there is no objective and self-sustaining way to define who is
> entitled to what cultural identity (not to mention those with
> multi-cultural identity.) so as far as individuals are concerned,
> they belong to cultures and linguistic communities they claim or
> recognize themeselves in. they can still have their say, but it is
> more likely that if they seriously want to make a difference, they
> would need to join their claimed community in some sort of collective
> action.
>
> - as to legal entities, I guess it is simpler to determine their
> statuts as per their incorporation, from which derives their
> "nationality" or the legal system they are answerable to. we may well
> talk about global corporations, but they are still
> registered/incorporated somewhere, be it in a single or in several
> countries, which constitue the basis where all sorts of legal
> consequences derive from; obviously, the nationality or linguitic
> skills of the CEO would not be enough to claim rights over any
> language scripts in the DNS.
>
> Mawaki
>
>> a.
>>
>