Explaining the role of United Nations to young people has always been a hard task. Young and not much wise, children and young adults often find little or no concern about politics and international affairs. In order to bring awareness regarding United Nations and its functioning, a simulation by the name of Model United Nations (MUN) was introduced that has rapidly gained popularity in Pakistan in the past few years.

Although the concept of MUN is as old as United Nations itself, being a program at University of Washington since UN creation, it has gone through several changes until it came to be in its present form in early 2000s. The purpose of MUN is to create awareness among the youth about UN and functions of its various bodies, hone debating skills, improve critical thinking, research about countries on various critical issues, debate upon important issues, deliberate upon possibilities and agree on solutions for various problems.

In Pakistan, the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) played a big role in introducing popularizing this concept in the country. Winning HUMUN (Harvard University Model United Nations) 5 times, LUMS students hosted LUMUN (LUMS Model United Nations) and they never looked back. Today, LUMUN is the largest MUN conference of Pakistan that is attended by students from all over the country as well as from abroad.

More institutions took the lead to host MUN conference and prestigious schools, colleges and universities stepped up to host similar events both internally as well as externally. We saw the birth of ZABMUN (SZABIST), ACMUN (Aitchison), ROTMUN (Rotaract), MUNIK (IBA), MUNPK and many others that follow the popular format and teach students practically the art of public speaking.

There are several committees that discuss current topics related to their area of concern and students act as delegates of a certain country. The most commonly hosted committees are:

• UN Security Council (SC)
• Committee of Disarmament and International Security (DISEC)
• UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
• Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL)
• Committee of Social, Cultural and Humanitarian (SOCHUM)

There are many other committees as well that may not have any direct relevance to UN’s functioning such as The Arab League, NATO, US Security Council, ASEAN etc. Most MUN conferences in Pakistan do not host non-traditional committees and focus on UN itself.

Having experienced ZABMUN 2011 personally as a Delegate of Chile, representing the country’s viewpoints in the committee of Human Rights (UNHRC), I came to a certain understanding about MUN conferences.

What MUN teaches you?

A good MUN conference will teach you:

-          To speak your mind

-          Research well

-          Learn diplomacy

-          Gain allies

-          Defend your viewpoint/your country’s viewpoint

-          Argue your case

-          Form alliances

-          Learn how international politics/diplomacy takes place

-          Meet students with similar interests from around the country/region/globe

And much more as the advantages of MUN conference are never ending. That said, not every MUN conference is good and it will not necessarily teach what you are looking for. A MUN conference may:

-          Not give accurate picture of how UN functions

-          Not give you an understanding of the impact of your words/actions if you really were a Delegate at UN

-          Not provide you with learning opportunities if overall quality of participants is low or worse yet, very low

-          Not satisfy you in case the ‘Chair’ of the committee is biased

-          Frustrating if a Delegate of an important country for the committee is completely clueless and unprepared

-          Cause confusion if those who are suppose to be your allies are against you and those who are suppose to be against you are acting as your allies

-          Not prove fruitful if the committee wastes time discussing topics that do not concern them

For any MUN conference it is very important to have a good participants and strong chair. Just imagine Israel in UNHRC and how it defends itself and its viewpoint. As a Delegate of any country you would certainly expect Arab nations and many others to practically gang up on Israel in MUN for Human Rights violations, but if the delegate of Israel is completely clueless, refuses to answer or worse yet, says its sorry and will not violate Human Rights again, one can only hit his head on the wall.

Most MUNs have this problem and as this concept is relatively new, it will take time for the students to really get accustomed and prepare well for their roles. I came across some brilliant speakers and applaud them for the effort they did.

A student must experience at least one good MUN conference to learn some valuable lessons of life and learn to speak your mind will always help you wherever you go.

This article was first published in December edition of Circles Magazine

Filed under: Education, Personal Experience Tagged: Circles Magazine, LUMUN, Model United Nation, ZABMUN 2011

I started blogging in 2005 when my friend Umema introduced me to this world. Blogspot was the main platform those days and for many Pakistanis, Blogging was little more than online interactive diary where they shared their thoughts, write about their daily activities and tweak around to improve the display of the webpage.

I didn’t had much to share since casual blogging wasn’t something I could relate to, still I tried to work things out and blog. Slowly and surely I posted for few years until the fateful day of May 12, 2007 when Karachi witnessed terrible killings. I wrote a blog on it a couple of days later and ended up hating the very sight of my own blog.

I stopped blogging completely.

It took me 3 years to get over the images of dead bodies and burned buses I saw near Sohrab goth and attempted to get back into the world of blogging again. One major reason was my job where I got the chance to write blogs for a client, thereafter triggering the need to express my writing abilities once again and blogging was the obvious choice.

I continued with Blogspot (which was now renamed Blogger) for few months until I felt it was too confining. In January 2011 I decided to do something about it and created a new blog at WordPress. I imported my previous blogs from Blogger and tried to rebuilt my online life once again. Social media helped in creating a readership and in few months I was able to discover the side of me that was most suited to blogging.

I used to think I would be ideal to blog about Politics but soon I discovered that wasn’t the case. I tried short stories, sports blogging, technology and few others until I realized that what I mostly wanted and easily contributed was related to society. I could see problems and issues, possible solutions and my interpretations and that’s where I started to focus. It wasn’t long before I met many fine people in cyberspace because of these posts and became a regular contributor to Circles Magazine whose founder had stumbled upon my blog.

I now have the honor of getting nominated for Pakistan Blog Awards in the category of Best Social Activist Blog. I request the visitors and readers to click on the following image and see my nomination. Your vote and comment for my blog would be highly appreciated.

(Update: I just discovered that Umema’s blog has also been nominated for the category Best Diarist. I request the visitors to see her nomination and vote for her blog.)

Filed under: Personal Experience Tagged: Blogging journey, Pakistan Blog Awards, Wasio Abbasi