Amity International MUN 2011

The MUNs seem to be catching up with the Oakridgers and there have been representations from our students in all the major MUN conferences across the world with some of them having five to six MUNs to their credit. Janardhan a Grade XI student attended one such conference hosted in Delhi by Amity International. It was a ‘very enriching experience’ for him and this is what he has to say……

Applause rang all around me. The committee I participated in at Amity International MUN 2011, the Russian Security Council (SC) in the Joint Crisis Committee (JCC), was a unique experience in many ways. The JCC was being simulated for the first time at a school-level MUN, and its features, operations, methodology and aims were extremely different from the usual committees undertaken by the Organising Committee (OC) at an MUN. Unlike the United Nations Organization committees usually simulated, the JCC consisted of the SC’s of the Federation of Russia and the United States of America; they would consist not of delegates acting as representatives of UN nations, but rather as Ministers on the Cabinet of Russia and the USA. They would be presented with specific situations which brought the national security of ‘their’ nation under threat and would require them as Directors of federal organizations, heads of ministries and ambassadors, to collaborate and provide extremely specific and detailed solutions as suggestions of clear cut actions, called directives, to the President of their nations, which then it was upon the discretion of the President to adopt or reject. We acted as an advisory body.

I participated in the role of the Russian Minister of Emergency Situations, General Sergei Shoygu, in the Russian Security Council. We had no set topics, and were expected to conduct whatever research we considered relevant. We literally went in not having a clue as to what was going to happen. On the first day they provided us with a briefing as to how committee would function and progress, and how we were to conduct ourselves. As debate began, we quickly learned this was to be an MUN we would never forget, for better or worse.

We planned how to best interrogate and decipher the meaning of information a captured American spy told us and related issues, how to ensure the Americans could not eliminate said spy, how best to remove the eminent threat of nuclear attack upon us from the Arctic, the meaning of military operations escalations from the US CIA, political conflict, and this is just a summarization. The intensity, the dialogue, the research, the results, each and every single bit of interaction that occurred between the people in that room and with the US SC at a joint diplomatic talk staged in ‘Moscow’(our committee room) was high octane, active and as diverse from the placental UN committees as possible.

The adrenaline rush was a new MUN experience, when compared to committees where strict parliamentary procedure is followed, rendering the exciting situations dull. The strongest learning experience of any MUN yet, as our EB was hands on, our work unique, my committee-mates amazing people.

An MUN is always much more than committee participation and AIMUN provided me with a great opportunity to meet and interact with many interesting people and build friendships throughout the resplendent journey. There were also international delegates participating, from Germany, Mauritius and Pakistan, and the event was also memorable as I interacted with our brothers from across the border, and we put all the hate our countries harbor towards each other and just had some fun. The socials were dull, the hostel disgusting, but the opportunities and moments un-forgettable.

AIMUN 2011 was held from 17^th-19^th November, 2011. It had a wonderful opening ceremony with a speech from the Head of UNESCO for India and Bhutan, the Hungarian Ambassador to India, The Secretary-General, a note sent specially by Ban-Ki Moon, the UNO Chief, and the Head of AIMUN event.

-Janardhan Pashupati, 11D