DXBMUN’17

Dubai MUN

Recently I went to Dubai. No big deal. But I went for a conference. Now that’s cool. That not what sheiks go to Dubai for or live there for. So, I am ahead of them. At the moment. For just a period. Anddddddd that’s over now. Welcome back to normal life.

I went for an MUN conference. MUN stands for Model United Nations. It is basically like the United Nations but for kids. We get actual world problems/topics and we need to try and solve them. We follow all formalities and procedures like a normal united nations conference. But a lot cooler. For example, you can nuke North Korea just like that and get away with it. We get to loosen up from time to time and at the same time be formal. Bust the best part was: wearing suits. Especially the ones with pockets inside them. Those are another level of coolness.

I was representing school along with 15 others from my school. I was in the DISEC committee which is the first general assembly of the UN. It is the Disarmament and International peace and security committee. We had two agendas:

1. Preventive measures on the development of weapons of mass destruction
2. National Sovereignty and asymmetric warfare

Now the deal here was, I was a first timer. And I had gotten the worst country possible when it came to deal with these agendas. The United States of America. On weapons of mass destruction. They are asking everyone to reduce their weapons while they still have 6,800 weapons. Also, national sovereignty. That means grounds of a country and how foreign countries should not cross these boundaries. Look what happened with Iraq. Boy, this was going to be one tough ride.

After tons of research and making clauses and resolutions and position papers, the day finally came when I was going to leave. That day being 26^th of April, 2017.

Day 1

On the morning of the 26^th, after waking up at 5 o’clock I reached the airport at 6 am in the morning for a flight at 9. After immigration and security, we boarded the plane. As soon as we took off, I took out my computer to finish work. I was so submerged in work I didn’t realize we were landing until the angry air hostess told me to shut down my laptop but since she had to follow norms and policies she asked me to save my work before I shut it. We landed at 11 am Dubai time therefore gaining half an hour and were out by 1pm. We reached there by 1:30. Our hotel’s name was Howard Johnson or for short HOJO in Bur Dubai. We were served a late lunch and were allotted our rooms. The rooms were not bad and we had half an hour to unpack and to get ready as by 3 we had to go for the opening ceremony of the conference at the Indian High School.

When we thought we had a big auditorium these guys had an auditorium 4 times the size. It was HUGEEEEEEEEE (#donaldbhai). The chairs of the committees were introduced and secretary general of the conference gave a long speech. Then came the interesting part. There was a lady, Deepa Malik, who gave a motivational speech. She is a chest below paralyzed woman who is a para-Olympian winner and works for the betterment of people with disabilities. After her speech, I went up to her and spoke to her about Mitra Jyothi and if she has ever heard of it. If she could help visually impaired people and this foundation then it would prove beneficial to all those people.

After this opening ceremony, we had a 15-minute session with our committee where we had to introduce our selves. I had to introduce myself last and I have wdiscovered actual footage of what I said so your welcome-

“Hi everyone! My name is Raghav Agrawal and I am from Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai. I am the delegate of the United States of America and I joined MUN to improve my public speaking and see if we can make a change in the world.” There was pin drop silence because of the words, United States of America. Then some guy said that judging by my age, I was a first timer. Now that is the biggest secret that I didn’t want to say in front of these people. When the committee broke for dispersal, people swarmed up to me and asked whether they could be in my bloc or not. Now this was pretty unnerving and I was little shaken up. The entire bus ride back to the hotel I was huddled in backseat, imagining what would happen to me the next day.

Day 2

That night I was slamming in my research. I couldn’t sleep well and the next day I woke up at five and prepared. After a quick breakfast, we went back to the school for our first day of committee.

We started out with formal procedures such as the roll call. Again, I could see prying eyes looking at me while I gave my stance. Then we started out with the GSL or the general speakers list. In this we had to talk about the topic ‘Weapons of a mass destruction’ and give your countries stance on this matter. I was up first and I think I did a pretty average job on my first speech. Meh.

The horror cam before lunch. The delegate of Russia and Iran (both seasoned delegates) asked a for a challenge. I didn’t know what to do. The topic would be about the nuclear weapons. I was freaking out! In lunch I was racking my brains. I didn’t know what to do or, like they say in hindi tv shows, “Mujhe kuch samajh nahi aa rahahe!’’ but then the answer dawned upon me. If I backed out in front of the entire committee then I would be more of a laughing stock than if I got slammed in the challenge. So, I went up and asked for a 1v1 which is just one person per side. Delegates can choose allies that can help defend their stance. I thought it went better than I expected and it was fruitful.

Then the most exciting thing happened in our committee happened. The Secretary General of the MUN conference Akash Kumar came into our committee acting like Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. He came and spoke about things happening in Syria and kept calling out the US in things like “Don’t believe what the Western bloc says. It is all ‘Western propaganda’. We do not oppress our people and this crisis would not have taken place if the US hadn’t intervened.’’ He was actually roasting me in committee! It was a good laugh for me until the chair said the exact question I wanted to hear. “Does the Delegate of the United States of America wish to make a statement?” And then I am like “AW HELL YA!” I gave my statement. I defended my country like a good delegate and even called out the President for some things he’s done. It was a brilliant learning experience. Since it had already become 4:45 and we had to leave at 5:15 we had a MOE or Motion of Entertainment. In that we had to write confessions, superlatives and we made people dance and sing together for the revival of the delegates. Finally, at 5:15 committee was adjourned.

That evening we went to a mall in Dubai. I didn’t shop over there a lot. We had like 1 and a half hours to wander aimlessly around the mall and do anything we wanted. After that we went back to the hotel for a late night’s sleep.

Day 3

The next day was an amazing day in committee. We started the day by voting on the resolution we made on the topic ‘Weapons of mass destruction’. Believe it or not US and Russia bloc actually merged t from this resolution. I had to give a statement and everything. We passed the resolution and then started the second agenda; ‘National Sovereignty and Asymmetric Warfare’. We had just started the GSL when one of the chairs came into the room, screaming “DELEGATES, WE HAVE A CRISIS!”

The crisis was about a chemical attack in Syria and how it killed 200 people and how the other surrounding cities be affected. We had a PSL (Provisional Speakers List). The second update was how Syrian President Bashar AL Assad, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Vladimir Putin were meeting in Russia. It stated that the Syrian President had been kidnapped. The third update was a voice message by the cyber attacker group ‘Anonymous’ stating that they were behind these acts. The fourth update was that ISIS and Anonymous had teamed up to form ‘The Insurgents’. The fifth update was that The Insurgents were holding the president in Turkey. The last update was that USA and Ukraine had teamed up and freed the President from these terrorists but were holding him in Ukraine and were not allowing him to return to Syria because they wanted the people to be free of the oppressive Assad regime.

So, this was our crisis in a nutshell. That day committee went on for longer than usual and we were left only at 5:45, making it in time to load the busses. We were taken back to the hotel and reached by 7. We were given 20 minutes to change into comfortable clothes and freshen up and meet downstairs. We were going to the Dubai mall.

Ideally, we had to leave at 7:30 but because we couldn’t find a taxi or bus we had to wait a long time until I got the idea to call an Uber.

Dubai Mall is HUGE! We were given a limited timing of 1 and a half hours to look around. I didn’t buy anything but went on my own and looked around this famous building. They had an aquarium inside the mall. Time just flew by and we had to go back for another long day at committee. That night in the hotel room I devoured a McDonald burger which I bought from the mall. It may seem childish but better was needed for that day.

Day 4

This was our last day in committee and we were writing resolutions on the national sovereignty topic. This time we couldn’t merge because it would be completely against our foreign policy if we did. Both blocs were out there to win it. We go our resolution out there first but because of procedural mistakes (i.e. no underlining and other things like this) we had to table Russia-China resolution. They had four delegates come out as sponsors and they had to explain the resolution. There were chairs from different committees that came for time pass but grilled them with questions. Voting procedures started, after an entertaining roasting of Russia, China, Iraq and Iran. And thankfully, we failed it. It was so bad even after amendments that the chairs started clapping when we failed it.

We had lunch and then had a 45 minute MOE where we did the usual. And then sadly, committee was adjourned for the last time.

We piled onto the busses and we left for the closing ceremony at another school. The chairs gave speeches and awards and sadly I didn’t get any award. We then had a gala night where we had a live band and a DJ who was playing Hindi songs at full blast and people were singing along. Everybody was dancing and we had a human train at everything. I also met some Star Wars fans nd we spoke about our views and theories about The Last Jedi. Everybody packed up and we went home by 9. Our teachers being the generous people that they were let us go to other people’s rooms till 11:30 because we didn’t have committee the next day.

Day 5

After having a lazy breakfast and getting ready we left at 8:30 for the airport. Because of heavy traffic we left at 9:45 and immigration lines were the death of us. We hardly got 20 minutes at the airport and soon boarded the flight back to Mumbai.

At 5:30, the IHSRSDXBMUN’17 war over (that is an actual acronym)

Indian High School Round Square Dubai MUN’17