A Model United Nations recap by Vian Abdullah
The existence of borders and ethnicities in our world has created an assortment of colourful people groups that consider themselves a part of a collective. These countries, created through conquest and expansion, colonialism or (my personal favourite) nationalist movements, generally have what you would call a government, (theoretically) bringing law and order into said collective. In the 20th Century, these governments decided that war wasn’t popular and romantic anymore, so it would be a lot better to work together to prevent another big one from happening again. That’s why the United Nations was created, to “a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends”. An event that a lot of high schools have is the Model United Nations, or MUN for short, putting students in the positions of diplomats, to see if they can solve the global issues that adults can’t. This is what was held in MISJ this year, and I was one of the delegates.
The event came into my attention when my friend, who is also a contributor for the Post, approached me and said that they would like to be my co-delegate for the event, I happily obliged. So the council that we were assigned to was the ARF, the ASEAN Regional Forum, as the representatives of South Korea, tackling the South China Sea conflict. Researching for the topic is pretty straightforward, we just had to look at the history of the conflict and look at the stances of the various countries that will be in the council; what they’re motivations and what they’ll probably bring to the discussion. We put them in a Google Docs file and print them to have easy access to facts during the session. The session itself is mostly filled with speeches that tackle the various aspects of the topic. Such as in this situation, it can question the international laws that apply to the conflict, or the justification for the various claimants of the South China Sea. Beginners (and everyone in general) should probably create all of their speeches beforehand, alongside the various aspects that they want discussed, in order for the debate surrounding the issue to be controlled by them.
A thin line that needs to be walked upon when entering into any conference is to decide how much diplomatic or aggressive that you want to be. For example, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are in heavy disagreement over the crisis in the Crimean Peninsula, since both parties claim the territory as their own. The delegates of Ukraine and Russia in this situation has to decide whether they want to work with the opposing camp to reach an agreement. But this runs the risk of the resolution being signed to either heavily favour Ukraine or be biased towards Russia. If the opposing party accepts the bad deal, then they’ll be acting out of character and could be seen as a weak delegate. Being cooperative with your theoretical enemies is a good idea in certain times, as it shows the spirit of diplomacy and dialogue that is encourage by the UN. But in most cases there will probably be an opposing faction. At times, a delegate will have to draw a line in a sand, as they refuse to meet the demands of another nation. Also, it’s just generally more interesting with an opposing faction. So if the entire council looks like it’s moving towards a single resolution (like what was happening in this one), I highly suggest to make an opposing one.
Easiest way to do this is to just go against what the other party is advocating for (or what is written in their resolution). They want to do talks with the government of Rojava? Call it an illegitimate state and create a resolution that gives support to Bashar al-Assad. A resolution to redo the Papuan Act of Free Choice being written? Make another one that says that it violates Indonesian sovereignty. Another tricky challenge here is to assemble a broad coalition of delegates to support to resolution. To do this, appeal to the theoretical motivations of their countries, tell them why they should support you, and how their resolution is garbage compared to yours. Be as convincing as possible in your words, even if you don’t hold those views in real life; act like you know what you’re talking about. In fact, try to deflect the legitimate criticisms thrown at you by being like a politician and transitioning to another topic. Besides that, everything else you say has to be substantive and provide actual solutions. One way of getting a head start in MUN events is to create an entire resolution beforehand, and just type it again when you’re in the conference.
An interesting dichotomy that I found in this particular session is that the two people that won Best Delegate (seen in the picture above), have different approached to diplomacy. One is bombastic, loud, and unquestioning of his beliefs and motivations. While his co-delegate is much more level-headed and has to appearance of a reasonable negotiator, compared to the latter who is more tough. Their contrasting styles are definitely very complimentary to each other, as one is good at being attack dog and doing grand speeches, while the other is the pragmatist needed to approach the other delegates.
That’s the insight that I gained from the experience, over time you start to realise at at certain points, you need to step out of your line and take action, even if your country is not really in a position to do so. So just try to speak often, even if it’s just word salad, and maybe people will buy into your fake profoundness
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