Model UN
Post date: Apr 21, 2017 3:00:29 PM
Model UN
Claire Benevento-12 On April 6 and 7, eight Kirksville High School students (including me) were in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for the Iowa High School Model United Nations Conference (IHSMUN). Model UN is, not surprisingly, an imitation of the real United Nations, where delegates from countries meet to discuss global issues. For IHSMUN, each school is assigned at least one country to represent, and delegates are divided into various committees, each with their own debate topics. The goal is to create a resolution made of amendments that explain and attempt to resolve whatever the issue is.
This year, two of the delegates from KHS represented Canada (and made sure everyone knew it by carrying around a hockey stick and maple syrup). The other six represented the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), more commonly known as North Korea. Allyson Doman-12, who was chosen as best delegate in her committee, told us she knew she was doing a good job when someone from another school told her he saw her at dinner and thought, “I hate her.” DPRK is supposed to be the country that everyone hates, achieving that by arguing against amendments that nobody should be opposed to and arguing for the ones nobody should support.
In my committee, the two topics were Prevention and Cessation of Children in Armed Conflicts and Global Nuclear Disarmament. My fellow delegate, Samiya Azim-11, argued that child soldiers were basically the same thing as boy scouts, even though that is not her personal view. I argued against nuclear disarmament, DPRK being one of five countries that are not part of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The other countries that haven’t signed are India, Pakistan, Israel, and South Sudan. It was entertaining, since I got to take on a persona and make arguments based on views opposite my own. But then I got home and began to see the news stories about increasing tensions surrounding DPRK due to their threats and testing of weaponry, and I realized that it’s only funny until someone gets nuked.
There are people at Model UN who take it very seriously, and some of them are legitimately hoping to be delegates in the real UN so the resolutions they pass will actually have some effect on the world. There are plenty of people who participate meaningfully but don’t think about the conference in a larger context, and there are people who just want to get out of school. Those are all normal things, and the mix of personalities and motives is what makes conference enjoyable. Here’s the thing, though: even people who aren’t a part of Model UN should take global issues seriously, outside of the conference setting. They’re called global issues for a reason—they don’t just affect the people who pay attention to them. That’s especially true of nuclear weapons.