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

[Chun Eung Hwi]

Dear Tan and Milton,


On Mon, 12 Feb 2007, Tan Tin Wee wrote:

> Milton Mueller wrote:
> > TinWee, although it has some merit, there are several contradictions in
> > what you say.
> >
> > First, you appeal to elections but many of the governments you mention
> > -- Arabic countries, Thai government (military coup, King), China,etc.
> > are NOT elected and basically hold power through military force.
>
> Well that's my point to explain that one size doesn't fit.
> The reality is that some governments are elected, and some
> are elected and disputed because of electoral "inadequacies",
> and some are not, and some powers are backed by military might
> as you pointed out, and as I cited in my examples. In all these
> cases, they cannot be ignored if an IDN TLD roll-out that involves
> languages and scripts used in communities within their radar screen
> is to be successfully carried out. In fact, they probably have to
> be engaged and actively so.

I think the role of government in IDN as one stakeholder could be
different depending on circumstances. And I don't believe that any
government does have any right on language or language script. My concern
is how to design governments or their subsidiaries to be able to
coordinate or help making consensus in selecting IDN TLD string and its
registry operator from all concerned parties. Of course, even such a
coordination role could also been carried out by non-governmental
entities. My point is that the right should be given neither to government
nor to commercial entity.  More precisely, such a right is to be given
primarily to the language script community.


> > Second, the marriage of political authority, which involves exclusive
> > _coercive_ authority within a _fixed_ territory, to linguistic
> > groupings, which except for a few very rare cases (e.g., Korea) do not
> > map well to those territories, can be quite dangerous.  As anyone should
> > know from current and past struggles over "ethnic cleansing" and
> > nationalism the combination of governmental power and cultural identity
> > is volatile chemstry, to put it mildly.
>
> Yes indeed, marriage might be dangerous, as is marriage of
> convenience, or co-habitation or whatever,  but what is your point here?
> My point is that while in some cases they map well, and in some
> cases they don't, but they do map to a sufficient extent that we
> have to engage and pay some degree of respect for the coercive
> authority that they hold rightly or wrongly. In an ideal world
> we won't have deal with this sort of situation, but as it is, we are unable to
> take positions of political ideology or make judgements of rightful
> or wrongful territorial jurisdiction in areas of technical coordination
> such as IDN TLD roll-outs, which is probably your point. But
> I am merely saying, even so, we cannot ignore that  the moment
> one tries to deploy IDN TLD in the script which people in their control
> use, one may have to talk to them about it. And if they do talk to
> people who are influencing or deciding on IDN TLDs about it,
> one should not be turning them away.

Sure! we cannot turn them away.

However, we should also take into account some difficult cases where
government could not support or sometimes may be at enmity with its
internal specific language community. Even in those cases, if such any
specific community has some concern on IDN TLD, how could that community
join in this decision making process?
Those language communities which are suffering linguistic "ethnic
cleansing" would not get any such governmental intervention for their
language script things. Such attitude could be shown to commercial
entities as well.

Usually, commercial entity would have not any interest on that community's
concern at all if its potential market is not so attractive. If so, does
beauty contest way of selecting registry application be the most
appropriate for IDN TLDs?

e.g. In the past, Japanese colonial authority had prohibited the use of
Korean language and language script for the purpose of destroying its
cultural identity. And then to use our own language itself was an
independence movement action. Suppose, given this history, how can Korean
language community accept Japanese registry to operate Korean IDN TLD?
What about Tibet IDN TLD being operated by Chinese registry?
Or will American Indian language script IDN TLD induce commercial
interest's concern?

One clear answer to all these questions is to respect the language script
community and their concern on IDN and to open up and encourage their
participation than anything else.


> The answer may lie in making a decision that instead of
> prescribing exactly what these people ought to be doing in IDN TLDs,
> we should be suggesting and encouraging them to make their own
> decisions as to what they should be doing for their own scripts.
>
> Imagine: we are opening up the Thai Unicode Block for IDN TLDs. All
> Thai speaking/script writing stakeholders are invited
> to the Thai Wiki site to discuss this in Thai, and
> when you are done, translate into English, demonstrate that your
> process included all key Thai language stakeholders (perhaps
> including those in other IndoChina states)
> and non-exclusive representation, and if we do not get
> conflicting proposals from alternative Thai stakeholders
> (ie. you have not been inclusive enough, or effective enough
> to gain consensus), there shouldn't be any reason why we
> shouldn't take whatever Thai labels in punycode that you
> have selected and put in on the root server.
>
> Simple principles of
> Self-Organisation
> Self-Determination
> Self-regulation and subsidiarity

I fully agree to all of this thinking particulary for those principles of
self-organization, self-determination, self-regulation of language script
community.



> Transparency and openness
> Inclusivity and consensus
> Non-conflict with other codespaces
> level playing field
> minimal administrative, bureaucratic, financial or political barriers
> competence, tech.... etc  any more?
>
>
> bestrgds
> tin wee
>

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Chun Eung Hwi
General Secretary, PeaceNet |   fax:     (+82)  2-2649-2624
Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81   |   pcs:     (+82)  19-259-2667
Seoul, 158-600, Korea  	    | eMail:   chun at peacenet.or.kr
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