As many of you may know, the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is taking place 16. to 18. November in Tunis. To this point, Free Software Foundation Europe has been very active in the WSIS so far, participating not only in the first phase actively, but also in followup-conferences, involving mainly myself, but also Karin "kyrah" Kosina and Jonas Öberg.
And while the United Nations often look like the perfect real-world application of Bullshit Bingo, discussions on this level set the course for humankind for many years to come. But while the first phase saw several quite productive moments, the second phase of the WSIS was very educational, and not exactly in a good way for the most part of it.
One reason for this is certainly the location of the second phase: Tunisia. A country with beautiful landscapes, an old culture and a tradition of human rights violation. And there were apparently quite a few people worried about this — otherwise the WSIS web site would hard offer a set of "FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES GRANTED TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE SECOND PHASE OF THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY".
Like Tunisia, too many places in the world still need frequently(!!!) raised and answered questions about the existance of basic human rights. That is why the Tunisian Civil Society acitvists have asked all of us to go there and remind people that the only opinion you’re free to have in Tunisia is that of the government. And while it scares me, it is a reason to go there.
I’ll keep you posted and would like to take the moment to thank all of you for joining the Fellowship: Your contribution has made it possible for FSFE to send me to that event, hopefully doing some good. But before going there I will first go to Zürich tomorrow, where I’ll participate in the tweakfest.ch.
I hope I’ll see some of you there.
