CBMUN’12 – Diversity through Dialogue
A special thanks to Zehra Qamber, Samra Razakazi, Ramsha Wasti and Bilal Ahmed Sheikh for covering the event and making this report possible.
Model United Nations – a social and cultural event which aims to build and enhance an individual’s confidence, interpersonal skills and general knowledge. These three qualities act as three pillars for every student on which they could create a bright and better future for themselves. The Model United Nations have all the necessary ingredients to do just that.
IoBM, after its first year of organizing the CBMUN in 2008, never looked back. After three successful years of CBMUN, came its fourth installment the CBMUN 2012, which was expected to be bigger and better than the previous ones seeing to the high standards it had set for itself. So did it live up to its expectations? Lets find out!
As you enter the bustling corridors of IoBM, you observe young delegates arguing, negotiating, and bashing their way through some of the toughest problems this world has ever seen. You would certainly be impressed by the quality of debate and the way each chair deals with all the first time as well as experienced MUN-ers.
I was as excited as any other person would be with all the hype created for the CBMUN 2012, and even more excited about the social events that were hosted by IoBM, the Carnimun and the Global Village. The three-day session began with the inauguration ceremony in an atmosphere charged with a great deal of enthusiasm, which might strike you as a little out of the ordinary for a mere interactive affair. As the day unfolded though, the sessions became engaging and captivated the interest of the reporting team.
The ceremony officially began at 9:30 am with a very fashionable young lady taking the stage wearing what looked like quite an expensive dress. The ceremony was initiated with reciting verses from the Holy Quran, a few words of wisdom were passed on to the delegates by a senior faculty member of IoBM who had great knowledge about current and past global events aiding to the cause of an MUN.
The Director of IoBM was invited next on the stage who to my surprise was wearing a worn out blue jeans, but apparently had a very logical excuse for that. One thing I observed in the CBMUN was that the organizers had logical excuses for everything and they would be very convincing too. After wishing good wishes to the delegates, the director departed from the auditorium and on came the Secretary General, Mateen Ansari a fine-looking young man wearing a classy suit, reminding the delegates of the fact that they are in an MUN. His speech was bold and aggressive reflecting the tone of his expectation of perfection from his delegates. “MUN has evolved from just being a discussion session to a platform where we arm the youth with the attributes of diplomacy, negotiation and working out problems”, says Mateen.
The conferences began with each of the six committees of UN receiving a delegate of each country. It was confounding to see the blend of cultures; Saudi Arabia sitting wearing a skirt, and the French delegate behind a veil. Overlooking the misrepresenting outfits, the delegates represented their countries well; they were well-informed and up to date on the matters at hand. If you entered one of the committee rooms, and saw people with their placards high above their heads, or banging table-tops with bare hands (just the way they do it in real UN sessions), it would not be hard to believe that the delegates really had their nations’ best interest at heart and were really keen towards working out the legislation and resolutions.
“This session has been a great help in understanding the World Politics and has assisted me in working out obstacles diplomatically.”, says Fareeha, a fresh munner at the CBMUN Sessions. A second-time attendee, Tariq, summed up the three days: “This session seemed much more conclusive, discrete and tactful to me than the last one.”
The Gen. Sec. introduced the Director General, Marium Aman Hanif (also the president of LPSS); the girl won the heart of the entire auditorium with her gorgeous smile. Following her, the entire secretariat was called upon the stage the Chair and Co-Chair of each of the six committees which included United nation Security council, Special summit on Neo Imperialism, Human rights commission, Future of Modern Warfare, Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Criminal Police, but the person that brought the auditorium back to life was Rameen Rizwan the chair for UNSC. The guy was tall, dark and flawless, strong body language and had great presence of mind. He gave the introduction on the rules and regulation of CBMUN, yet he too gave a very logical and convincing excuse for the reduced number of delegates for CBMUN-2012.
I visited each of the 6 committees to see how the delegates were doing visited SSN first where for me the delegate of Bangladesh stood out from the rest, there were a few confused faces, a few filled with excitement and a few who had no interest of what the other delegate was saying.
The next was the UNFAO, they were young, energetic but no so confident, Egypt was thinking a lot, Russia was deep in his thoughts, and Germany was pro-active. INTERPOLE seemed to have a very interesting topic and all of the delegates were very active with sexual exploitation and age of consent being the topic of discussion.
UNHRC had a predictable topic i.e. protection of rights of indigenous people. A very good-looking Nigeria was making her point clear when I had entered the room and France was proposing laws on Nakaab for women. India raised a caucus which was denied by the chair as it got no votes at all, it was as embarrassing as the Indian cricket team’s defeat in Australia; the delegates were very confident but overshadowed by the lack of relevant matter.
UNSC seem to had one of the professional delegates maybe because Rameez Rizwan was the Chair. Very competent discussions were made by every delegate present in that room which was very encouraging to see.
SSFMW, on the other hand, seemed to have the most different topics of discussion such as the super soldier and the human genome. Were they trying to draft a resolution to approve the super soldier program so every country could too have a Captain America?
A total of 120 delegates were registered for the CBMUN 2012 from which atleast 80% were first time MUNers. Students from universities such as NED, NUST, DOW, PAF Chapter and Comex College participated in the event. There were delegates also from Lahore and Islamabad which was very pleasing to see as CBMUN was not just restricted to Karachi.
To keep the interest of the participants perked up, each days’ session was followed by a colorful social event. These included a carnival, a cultural show off and a formal dinner on the first, the second and the last days of the session respectively. The participants were also given some allotted time during the sessions referred to as entertainment breaks, in which they could mingle with other participants and break free of the formal restraints that were placed on them during the sessions.
Talking about the social events, on paper CARNIMUN stood out by far to be the best event ever with rides such as Bungee bull, Climb mountain, Gladitor Joust, Trampoline etc. In short, a total Carnival although IoBM style! However, as per what I heard of the feedback from the delegates, it didn’t live up to its expectations.
The Global Village gave the delegates the opportunity to present and represent the culture, traditions, language, dressing etc of the country they have been assigned to, delegates showed full commitment in doing just that which made the event very colorful and entertaining, yet educational for everyone and truly stood out as the best event.
The Formal dinner, being the last event also included the closing ceremony. The setup included a dance floor and some very good songs; the delegates had put on their dancing shoes and showed their moves which were very impressive. The event truly lived up to the IoBM name, the delegates partied and partied hard, the guys had done their best to look their best but the ladies stole the show with there saaries and pishwaas – a colorful evening indeed!
Bringing down the curtains it is worth noting that this CBMUN session delivered more than just discussion and dialogues and certainly in itself it contains a promise to cater and provide the society with a more capable and meticulously diplomatic young generation.
So on a scale of 1 to 10 where did the CBMUN-12 stand? Well, it has to be an 8! So would you attend the CBMUN-2013………WHY NOT!
Woh!! relived the event just by reading through this…:)