| |
|
|
Modeling the Future
Students simulate United Nations sessions in Brussels conference
during spring break
By Winnie Li '00
Special to the Gazette
I did not return from my spring break tanned and well-rested.
Unlike most of my classmates, I didn't spend my time sprawled across
some sun-drenched beach in Florida. Instead, I found myself deep in the
heart of Western Europe, running an international conference in Brussels,
busy, stressed, and overtired. It was hardly a break from my already hectic
life at Harvard. And yet, I enjoyed every single minute of it.
From March 25 to 29, Brussels, Belgium, was the site of the seventh annual
Harvard World Model United Nations (WorldMUN) conference. And, as director
of public relations and publications for WorldMUN 1998, I was as busy as
one might expect, running a simulation UN conference for more than 300 international
college students.
But I was far from the only Harvard student who spent her spring break
in this exhausting, exciting, and exhilarating way. I worked with 14 other
Harvard undergraduates along with a transglobal team of college students
to organize a conference which strove -- politically, socially, and culturally
-- to overcome international barriers and boundaries.
Now that I'm back on this side of the Atlantic, it seems strange and
almost surreal to attempt to resume my familiar life here as a second-year
student. I attend my classes, do my homework, go to meetings, and eat my
breakfasts in the Eliot House Dining Hall every morning. It is all the way
it was before I left for spring break. But two weeks ago, I had never set
foot in Europe, nor had I ever wandered through streets that were older
than two centuries, nor had I conversed with students from five continents
at once. But now I have.
WorldMUN is an international educational conference that simulates various
organs of the United Nations and other international organizations. In 10
different committees, college students from more than 30 countries and 5
continents assume the roles of ambassadors who -- through caucusing, lobbying,
resolution-writing, and formal debate -- attempt to solve some of the most
pressing global problems. However, the international experience of WorldMUN
extends far beyond the debates in the committees. Never before had I worked
so intensely and harmoniously with students who so truly represented the
diversity of the ethnicities and backgrounds in this world.
Take, for example, the Executive Board of WorldMUN 1998. Of the six people
who formed the core of the Harvard staff, I was the only American. I had
spent my whole life in a small town in the North Jersey suburbs before coming
to Harvard. But this was hardly the case with the rest of the Exec Board.
Johs Pierce '00, our Secretary General, is half-Danish, half-American,
with grandparents who are missionaries in Swaziland. Marjolein Wijnen '00,
Deputy Secretary General, is Dutch. Zeynep Postalcioglu '00, Director of
Administration, is Turkish. Thomas Schoenwaelder '00, Director of Recruiting,
is German, but has lived much of his life in the Philippines. And Sanjaya
Shrestha '99, Business Manager, is Nepalese but attended school in Canada.
Add the rest of the Harvard staff, and we can claim citizens from Kenya,
Hungary, and Sweden, and even a refugee from Palestine.
Furthermore, this year marked the first year that WorldMUN was organized
in conjunction with a European school. For months, students from Vesalius
College and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel -- our counterparts and now our
close friends -- had labored just as tirelessly, if not harder, than us
to prepare for and host the conference. It was due to their efforts that
WorldMUN 1998 welcomed Karl van Miert, Commissioner for Competition for
the European Commission, as our keynote speaker at the Opening Ceremonies.
They also made it possible for many of our committees to assemble in the
actual headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or United
Nations Development Programme.
It is quite a sign of our progess that, in only seven years, WorldMUN
has become the second-largest Model UN conference outside the United States.
And, unlike many of the other 200-odd Model UN conferences, WorldMUN is
the only conference that changes sites each time it assembles. In the past
six conferences, WorldMUN has blazed a remarkable trail across Europe, beginning
in Poland in 1992, and from there moving to Prague, Luxembourg, Geneva,
Amsterdam, and Budapest, before hitting Brussels.
Johs likens WorldMUN to the Olympics -- schools in different countries
around the world bid to host the conference the following year. Last year,
we selected Brussels as the 1998 site, deciding against bids from Vienna
and Taipei, Taiwan. Already this year, six schools have expressed interest
in hosting the 1999 conference, inviting WorldMUN to locales as diverse
as Istanbul, London, and Bermuda.
This enthusiastic international reaction can perhaps be seen as testament
to the intensity and excitement of debate in the committees this year.
In the Disarmament Commission, chaired by Daniel Punt '99, delegates
clamored for a solution to nuclear proliferation after the Cold War, and
later wrestled with an unexpected crisis of military insurgency in Armenia.
At the same time, Mohamad Al-Issis '00 led his Middle East Multilateral
Peace Summit to sign a peaceful accord (after hours of exhaustive political
sparring), and similarly Andras Forgacs '98 and Steven Hill '98 succeeded
in guiding a Council of Ministers for the European Union and the North Atlantic
Council of NATO, respectively, toward complete treaties determining the
role of Europe in future geopolitics.
And in the six other committees, debate was just as fast and furious.
Joseph Soler '98 and the Security Council, James Mwangi '00 and the UN Development
Programme, Mans Larsson '99 and the Special Political and Decolonization
Committee, Shirley Hung '00 and the UN Environmental Programme, Melissa
Neuman '99 and the UN Children's Fund, and Thomas Schoenwaelder '00 and
the UN High Commission for Refugees all engaged their delegates in painstaking
but ultimately rewarding diplomacy to settle problems ranging from the AIDS
pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa to environmental warfare throughout the world.
In order to make these committees possible, the entire staff on both
sides of the Atlantic had worked intensely since last May. But this was
not to say that we suffered miserably in joyless drudgery. If anything,
WorldMUN presented the opportunity for us to experience camaraderie and
personal interactions on an international scale. Yes, there were nights
in Brussels when I was up until 4:30 designing publications on my Powerbook
in a cramped hotel room. But there were other nights when I was up until
4:30 socializing with delegates from around the world at a club in the middle
of Brussels.
I became a translator for an envoy from the Chinese military, a high-tech
security guard for a breaking crisis at the Middle East Summit, and a moderator
for the plenary session of the General Assembly, where all 354 delegates
convened on the final morning. Nor can I forget what it was like to wander
through the ancient city of Bruges -- "the Venice of the North"--
with newly made Belgian friends in a late afternoon rain, or soak in the
nighttime architecture of the Grand Place -- the medieval square in the
center of Brussels.
Now that I am back at Harvard, it seems futile to try to tell my friends
here what WorldMUN is all about. Every year, we just manage to break even
with our finances, our staff consists of only 15 people, and our office
is an unnoticeable hole in the wall of Thayer basement. On campus, we are
a small and overlooked presence. But each spring, we succeed in stirring
the lives of hundreds of students around the world and helping them to transcend
boundaries to understand what it means to live on this increasingly international
planet. I am one of those students.
My spring break was 10 days of sleepless exhaustion, dedication, and
exertion in the capital of Europe. But would I do it again? There is no
need to even ask.
Copyright
1998 President and Fellows of Harvard College
|
