Total Hours: 45 hours Categories: Creativity, Activity
The very name ‘Harvard Model United Nations India 2016’ sounds daunting – precisely why I took on this challenge recklessly, labored over it obsessively and enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps the line ‘I learned so many things’ has become clichéd and so overused that the sentence lost its very essence, but to put it through differently I would say I experienced a mini-demo of life. Of literal life. Of the trials and tribulations one goes through socially, financially, culturally, ideologically and personally on a small scale. As most MUNs go, HMUN, of course, has taught me how to research, organize and collate information as fast as possible – especially considering the fact that I had only 5 days to do my own research (I HAD EXAMS L ). I learned about a war that has been raging in the world for almost 100 years with hundreds of people dying every day, something I’ve been blind to for a long time. I learned about its causes and the repercussions of having an unstable, undemocratic government; historical ethnical and racial divides and unnecessary international intervention. The Sykes-Picot agreement revived primordial identities, Assad’s cruel regime created humanitarian rebels, religion created a bloody feud between Jews and Arabs and the American invasion of Iraq weakened it and the instability of entire Middle East created the terrorist group: the Islamic Stat – a bloody, cruel, torturous manifestation of the Domino Effect. I would say this has developed me emotionally and psychologically. I learned how to be diplomatic in putting forward my views, how to challenge someone, how to compromise and how to socialize with people I’ve never seen before (and how not to – some of my social endeavors may have gone wrong: P). Through HMUN, I have fulfilled every single criterion in the IB Learner profile – I’ve become an inquirer (which policies work? What was wrong in the previously policies that did nothing/aggravated further the Middle East conflicts), thinker (what new solutions can be implemented?), communicator (as lobbying: ‘Hello, I’m Belgium and would like to ask if you would join our bloc as your foreign policies comply with ours and also because our joint compromise could possibly solve this issue”), risk-taker (in signing up for this event and in being daring enough to challenge more experienced, assertive delegates) and have become knowledgeable (of world politics and situation), principled (in being organized, spending money wisely, staying safe in a new environment, in travelling and other etiquettes in general), open-minded (in accepting the perspectives and behavior of other delegates), caring (in defending younger delegates that were sometimes attacked by the more assertive ones), balanced (in reaching a compromise with other countries – this was also a central part of my country’s policy, which placed heavy emphasis on compromise as can be seen from 1) the popular phrase ‘a Belgian compromise’ 2) the fact that most peace talks happen in either Brussels or Geneva) and reflective (in analyzing after HMUN what were my strengths and weaknesses and what qualities of mine I should develop further or change).
My vision for this activity was largely to gain experience. I had wanted to learn every single thing that could not be taught in the traditional classroom and could only be developed through experience – skills such as debate, diplomacy and making social connections (the last being extremely important in a world as globalized and connected as today – we can learn a million things from simply talking to people/students).
I encountered numerous challenges in the form of assertive delegates, working on working papers and resolutions until 3 am in the morning, functioning for days without sleep or food (we had amazing food and time to sleep but I didn’t really use them well), surviving in a completely new, unguarded environment where I was respected as a develop individual (I’ve never been in such an environment before) and sifting through volumes and volumes of data on the internet. It was also challenge to ensure my personal bias did not affect any decisions I made as the delegate of Belgium. I tried my best to fix every single one of these problems in order to develop myself as a holistic individual.
Though debate might seem like an individual activity, Model United Nations is largely a group activity as it always requires delegates forming blocs with other delegates with similar ideologies. This is usually easier said than done and is harder in MUNs than in normal classroom activities because in MUNs, you do not know a thing about other delegates and might accidentally say something that could possibly offend a delegate.
I know that every single skill I’ve fostered will be useful in a million other ways in the future – at university, at workplace and in life, in general. I have made contacts with people from Oman, Singapore, China, Iraq, Bahrain, Bombay, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and remote places of India I didn’t know existed.
In retrospect of this CAS experience, I would say that this is by far, the best curricular activity I’ve ever taken part in. It has developed me culturally, socially and personally and has helped me find my passion for international relations, government and debate. Who knows, I may even pursue to study international relations in the future!
Yours truly,
difference in policies and I had to jump from one bloc to another until I found one that complied with my ideology, and came up with a working paper. After this, from 12:30 to 1:30, we had lunch and from 1:30 to 4 pm, we had the HMUN India Leadership Forum, wherein Mr. Amitabh Kant, Mr. Ishteyaque Amjad, Mrs. Manjeet Kripalani and Prof. Rahul Chopra delivered speeches on numerous topics: from business to government to international relations to science. Soon after another half hour break, committee session started from 4:30 pm and continued on till 7:00 pm. Debates from the morning continued, followed by more caucuses. All the working papers submitted by the committee, which totaled to 
ELEVEN papers, were printed and distributed and we spent this session debating on the effectiveness of each paper. Though critical comments were rather undiplomatic and harsh at times, I realized that critics are needed in order to form a resolution without loopholes, to form a resolution that would actually work when implemented on a large scale. After a 1.5 hour break, HMUN India’s Got Talent began at 8:30 and lasted for two whole hours till 10:30, during which I wore a traditional dress. My, my, the talents around the world were astounding! Songs were beautiful to listen to, the delegate’s mellow voice carrying out into the vast conference hall, carrying messages about empowerment, love and fire to all the leaders of tomorrow. There were hip-hop performances, bharatanatyam performances and folk dances. There were even magic tricks! One particular performance I loved was a delegate who ‘slammed’. Boy, was it the most beautiful, most meaningful, most amazing and most honest message I’ve ever heard. She spoke of how appearance, comfort and relationships are given more importance than poverty, hunger, education and war.
The CAS Platform 