Going to the 1st Malaysian-ASEAN Regional Bloggers Conference

Strange invites come Unspun’s way. One fine day he gets a call from Malaysia inviting him and two other Indonesian bloggers, Ollie and Herman Saksono to the 1st malaysian-ASEAN Bloggers Conference, to be held in Kuala Lumpur this weekend.

The conference is organized by the newly-formed Blog House Malaysia to “bring together regional bloggers from the ASEAN region, and to highlight the obstacles faced by these bloggers as well as the adversity that bloggers might experience in their day to day tackling of various issues”.

All of this sounds very serious and very grown up, especially when we were told that on Sunday the conference will be addressed by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, who is also the patron of Blog House Malaysia; and the present Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Tun Razak, both holding interesting and sometimes  changing views on freedom of expression 😉

The Conference, which will also have representation from Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and, of course, Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak), is also to come up with a declaration of sorts about ASEAN Blogging.

So far the proposed wordings are:
1. The establishment of an ASEAN New Media and Blogging network to promote understanding, good relations, unity and co-operation for regional betterment and progress of the new media practitioners in the spirit of mutual respect

2. To assist achieving the goals as spelt out by the ASEAN Governments, regulators and NGOs for better cooperation, goodwill and to promote greater understanding and familiarity of the new media

3. To promote the freedom of information, freedom of new media and freedom from prosecution consistent with the dawn of the Digital Democracy

4. To promote responsible and ethical practice of the new media

5. To meet regularly and promote the growth and progress of new media in ASEAN

The Indonesian contingent is also expected to provide a 15 minute overview of blogging in Indonesia and how an ASEAN network of bloggers may help the development of blogging.

This seems like a lot of serious stuff for Unspun and he’s really like to know what do other Indonesian bloggers feel about 1. the declaration and 2. what should go into the overview. Thoughts please.