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The girl from Cairo American College was called Dina. She was representing Israel, even though she was herself Turkish/Egyptian. She had just presented her resolution to the General Assembly on the Lebanon War. Her stance had been for a cessation of hostilities, with the full disarmament of the Hezbollah military arm. Although her resolution had had several amendments, it was pretty much intact. Then, the final blow came. As the general assembly was voting, the number of people against the resolution suddenly became more apparent-dozens and dozens of little placards with the words Iran, Syria, Jordan came into view, and before Dina had a chance to count them properly, her resolution had failed.
Procedure dictating her actions, Dina, as the mastermind of the resolution, was invited by the president of the Chair to speak on the failed resolution. Her fervor and obvious disappointment was striking. In her speech, Dina perfectly encapsulated MUN's groups of open individuals deliberately simulating countries foreign and unknown (to them), in an attempt to better understand other points of view; and whilst her failure also characterised many of the UN's decisions(!)-with different countries, most notably the 5 permanent members, jealously guarding their interests-her emotional involvement signaled her triumph. MUN is not about passing idealistic resolutions that sometimes do not even make grammatical sense, but about caring for the world, its people and their future. We did not present solutions to the topics of poverty, Security Council reform, or North Korea, but instead presented reassurance: reassurance that we cared and were willing to transcend ethnic, religious and cultural barriers to understand each other.
On a simpler, less moralistic note, the delegation from St Stephen's school can safely be said to have had an amazing time.
Arriving at Cairo international airport from Fiumicino, we were greeted by a school bus which took us to our hotel on the banks of the Nile in the suburb of Maadi. During the journey fragments of Islamic history lessons suddenly came pouring back into our heads as we saw the Citadel, or Mosque of Ali, and other architectural wonders of the Muslim world.
On Thursday morning we were greeted by our hosts, who (in my case, anyway, though I can vouch for all the others) treated us so well that it was uncomfortable. Before starting the actual conference as the delegation as a whole, we traveled to Saquarra in the desert to see the first step pyramids and Mastabas built by the Egyptians some 5,000 years ago. Apart from the impressive edifices, the occasional tourist guide dressed up as a Bedouin (or, as he would say, as "Yasser Arafat") ensured that our photos of the event were memorable.
Then, back to our wonderful hosts, who conjured up magnificent sushi on the first night. Without going into detailed descriptions, suffice to say that we were treated like kings; hiding in the dirty laundry to escape going back to school became a tempting solution to our problems, ere the black day of departure loomed ever more menacingly ahead.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, having verified that we were properly fed and watered and cultured, what, may you ask, did we actually do in the MUN conference (for want of a better word, and for self esteem's sake)? Well, before heading off, each and every one of us attended regularly weekly meetings and had examined our country in general and more importantly, its position on certain topics, such as Security Council reform, conflicts as a consequence of petroleum extraction, and so on and so forth. Each of us had with meticulous care drawn up resolutions for those issues, which would be presented to the general assembly, ECOSOC, or the Security Council, depending on where the delegate was allocated. For my part, the daunting prospect of representing Japan at the Security Council had been quivering above my head since before the summer holiday. However, armed with the invaluable knowledge bestowed upon us during the weekly, I set off gaily with an apple in my pocket and my handkerchief in the others to debate the issues.
Now, it is with great sadness that I have to announce a split within the St. Stephen's Fellowship, for I do not know what exactly happened in either the GA or ECOSOC, and therefore, it is with great sadness that I announce that from now on, I shall speak mostly of the matters discussed within the Security Council.
For those of you who do not know much about the workings of the UN, the Security Council has been described as the Nucleus of the UN, dealing primarily with the issues of security and peace throughout the world. There are 5 permanent members (France, UK, China, USA, and the Russian Federation), each with veto power (the power to annul a resolution), supposedly to maintain stability and order within the UN. Then there are 10 temporary members, elected from the GA to the Security Council for a period of 2 years. At the present time these countries are: Argentina, Republic of Congo, Denmark, Ghana, Greece, Japan, Peru, Qatar, Slovak Republic and the Kingdom of Tanzania.
So, on the first day, we all met to discuss the first issue, the reform of the Security Council. As predicted, the UK and more importantly the USA, were against such measures, as they associated reform with loss of power for their own countries. So, after 3 hours of awkward negotiation, in part due to the very particular set of rules and etiquette required by the UN, they vetoed the resolution. Three hours of work down the drain-or was it really down the drain? Well, no; in fact, their action of vetoing the resolution was extremely beneficial. Firstly, it led all of us delegates to believe that behind the false mask of international cooperation and peace lies the very selfish interests of individual countries. Secondly, their hasty veto showed the rest of the delegation exactly what honeyed clauses and flattering discourses to use, in order to make sure that the other resolutions would not be vetoed.
The next resolutions, on petroleum-fuelled conflicts, on the action to be taken in the DR of Congo, on the Lebanon would as a result all be passed with a large majority of votes, including the controversial resolution on the recent Lebanon War. It is funny how we can be manipulated by soft flattering words and complicated sentences, and be tricked into agreeing with resolutions that do not necessarily advantage us. Halfway through these tense discussions, our guest speaker, a journalist named Lawrence Pintak with 30 years of experience in covering the middle east came to talk to us. Suddenly, we became enraptured, having previously been bored stiff due to life threatening decisions of choosing one word to replace another, in order to satisfy a delegate's sense of self importance (even though often, the amendments made a murky clause even murkier!). Although the journalist had very obviously chosen his words carefully to be as politically correct as possible, it became quite clear that, even without the classic phrases such as ˜open our minds to other cultures" and "intercultural dialogue," this journalist had fully embraced a very different culture (Arabic) from his own. Before us stood a man that encapsulated all of the virtues that we ourselves were trying to develop, and this, without losing his sense of identity. Inspired by our newly found guru, we proceeded to add the finishing touches on a shaky resolution on Lebanon that for the most part advised actions that had already been taken (!).
In the final hours of the Security Council meeting, our MUN president ran breathless into the room shouting that the Security Council needed to act immediately on a pressing matter: according to official US intelligence, North Korea had sold nuclear missiles to terrorist organisations, and had threatened to take aggressive action against neighbouring countries should the USA not reopen negotiations. During the next hour, all delegates worked frantically to produce a resolution that would appease the situation. I am glad to say that such a resolution was approved by the Security Council and that it is now stored in the top secret archives, in the vaults beneath the concrete floors of the CAC.
With the North Korean incident firmly behind us, the lunch menu looked suddenly much more appetising. A closing ceremony, a night and a 3-hour flight later, all of us, delegates of St Stephen's found ourselves back in Rome, already melancholic of our time in Cairo.
So, this report concludes the following, in true MUN speech:
· Enthused by the recent MUN conference held at the Cairo American College in 2006,
· Saddened by the recent closure of said conference,
· The St Stephens School delegation:
1. Urges all St Stepheners to take part in the next MUN conference, to vent their brains to the winds of diversity,
2. Thanks in particular Mr Nieman and all of the teaching staff for permitting such a delegation to travel, and ensuring that their stay was as pleasant as possible,
Remi Drouin, was one of two delegates in the Security Council, recognized with an official prize as Outstanding Delegate as representative of Japan.