dispatches
Little Diplomats
"I'm going to send a fax to Condi!"
Updated Friday, Feb. 18, 2005, at 11:30 AM ET
From: Michael McGough
Subject: Adult Impersonators at the Model U.N., and the Perils of "Exceeding Your Brief"
Updated Friday, Feb. 18, 2005, at 11:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON, D.C.; Feb. 4, 2005—Nick Hall, a blond teenage boy with a Northern Irish accent, would never be mistaken for Naledi Pandor, the dark-skinned woman who serves as minister of education in the government of South Africa. But over burgers in a Washington, D.C., restaurant, Nick is explaining to me how he will imitate—maybe "channel" is the better word—Minister Pandor at the 42nd North American Invitational Model United Nations this weekend.
"I have studied up her Cabinet stands and things like that," explains Nick, an MUN veteran from the Methodist College school in Belfast. The mock South African Cabinet that Nick has been assigned to is one of 35 "simulations" planned for the weekend by the Georgetown students who are sponsoring NAIMUN XLII.
In preparing, Nick has also researched the positions of Minister Pandor's colleagues, who will be represented at the Cabinet meeting by other teen diplomats. Or as Nick puts it: "I made a list of all the Cabinet members that have made really stupid decisions, so I am going to attack them when we join the committee." The agenda for the committee will include race relations and AIDS—a word that Nick's accent charmingly endows with two syllables.
Nick and I are joined at dinner by seven of his teammates from Methodist College and his teacher, John Foster. Most of the 2,400-plus delegates who will hold forth in multiple Security Councils and General Assemblies this weekend will not have traveled as far as the students from "Methody," as their school is called, but there will be teams from all over North America and a few other foreign schools. And the Georgetown event is only one such extravaganza. Last month Yale offered an MUN for high-schoolers. In March, the national high-school MUN will be held in New York City. In October, John Foster and Methody will host an MUN for high-school students from Ireland, Britain, and overseas.
During the Cold War, James Merrill wrote a poem in which he scathingly referred to world leaders as "adult impersonators." These kids, of course, really are impersonating adults, and some of them affect a middle-aged world-weariness that can be unsettling. (In a later session, one teenage delegate says the plight of AIDS orphans "horrifies me as the father of a son.") But they're also in training. High-school MUN is a breeding ground for college MUN, and college MUN, especially at a place like Georgetown, with its School of Foreign Service, is often an apprenticeship for real-life diplomacy or some other public office. MUN isn't just a fantasy camp for would-be diplomats; it's a farm team. The skills prized at MUN are the same ones in demand at the real United Nations: Good delegates are eloquent, have a solid command of the facts, and recognize that a delegate should not "exceed his brief"—make concessions that only the president or prime minister can actually authorize. For MUNers, this means paying close attention to position papers issued (and posted on the Internet) by their countries.
The next night, when the conference opens at the Hilton Washington, the MUNers gather in the International Ballroom, where they will be officially welcomed and then addressed by a surprise guest speaker, former CIA Director George Tenet. Despite the required "Western business attire," a lot of the kids present wouldn't be out of place at the local mall; they hug and "Hey!" each other and exult about how "awesome" it is to be in D.C. But the ranks of regular kids are heavily salted with those who in their ungainliness, obesity, or sartorial eccentricity (I see some bow-tied Tucker Carlson wannabes) give credence to the stereotype that MUNers are geeks. These specimens remind me of the brainiacs who frequented debate tournaments in my high-school days, except that the "quote boxes" of that era—file drawers stuffed with factoids on index cards—have been replaced by laptops, the new repositories of killer statistics.
The laptops are everywhere, which points up another similarity to the debate tournaments of my youth: Most of the assembled MUNers are well-off. Most are white, too, though there is a significant admixture of Asian-Americans. The delegates may hoist placards marked "South Africa," Nigeria," and "Cameroon," but there are few black faces. Participating in NAIMUN is expensive: There is a $70 per-student registration fee plus hotel and transportation costs for out of town delegations. And the list of participating schools is heavy with the high-achieving private and Catholic schools from which Georgetown's college-level MUNers are drawn. (To be fair, some of the revenue from NAIMUN will underwrite a free MUN for D.C. schools to be held later.)
When George Tenet rises to address the delegates, he is surprisingly avuncular. Like Whitney Houston, he believes that children are our future, and he presents the delegates with a litany of challenges facing their generation.
Then Tenet opens himself to questions, asking the students to identify themselves (even though he knows everything about them, har har). He is hit with a few rhetorical grenades about Iraq, Sept. 11, and U.S. policy toward Islam. Most of the questioners are respectful, and a couple of them are obnoxiously long-winded, but Tenet doesn't patronize his audience. When Deborah Patton, one of the Belfast delegates, politely asks him to reconcile his endorsement of international consensus with his assertion that the United States must play a leadership role, Tenet—with the certitude that must have endeared him to George W.—responds: "If we don't step forward and lead, rarely does anyone else."
After Tenet's speech, the delegates get down to work, reporting to simulations ranging from multiple General Assemblies and Security Councils to the U.S. president's National Security Council to meetings of the International Criminal Court and the British, South African, and Indian Cabinets.
I join Nick Hall in the South African Cabinet, where he and his colleagues set about dealing with AIDS and racial tension. Primed by position papers and their own research, the Cabinet ministers eventually undertake a discussion of those two topics as knowledgeable as some I've heard at the newspaper editorial board meetings I have sat through. But, good parliamentarians that they are, the delegates begin with process, not policy, debating at length whether AIDS or racial tensions should be placed first on their agenda. Nick Hall enters the skirmish with this sensible sound bite: "We cannot educate people on racial tensions if they're suffering from AIDS."
When the Cabinet recesses, the ministers return to their rooms. Curfew is at midnight.
From: Michael McGough
Subject: They Don't Wear Chinos at the Real U.N!
Updated Friday, Feb. 18, 2005, at 11:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON, D.C.; Feb. 5, 2005—You don't have to like the United Nations to participate in Model United Nations, Elizabeth Gilson tells me. She and her fellow Miss Porter's School delegate, Camilla Rohrmann, are dining at the self-serve deli in the bowels of the Hilton Washington Hotel.
"I don't really believe in the U.N.," Liz confides, "I don't know how effective it is." Camilla begs to differ, though she admits a personal interest: Her father works for UNICEF in Palestinian communities.
Chris Bergtholdt, a delegate from Hampton Roads Academy in Virginia, ponders the same question, choosing his words with the elaborate care of a real diplomat: "You may agree or disagree with the U.N.," he says. "I kind of like the body, I don't think it's as effective as it should be, but this is a good opportunity to see how it works, why it isn't working the way it should be working, and to allow people to formulate ideas to change it."
Apparently lots of high-school students and their teachers agree. I'm told that, after a dip in attendance traceable to post-Sept. 11 worries about air travel, interest in MUN returned, and it remains strong despite the arguable irrelevance of the real United Nations during the Iraq war or the unraveling embarrassment of the oil-for-food scandal.
By the luck of the draw, Elizabeth and Camilla are representing Iraq in their committee (the Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Committee of the General Assembly). Such ripped-from-the-headlines portfolios are always difficult; the pair will have to stay abreast of developments in that occupied or liberated land. (If the Washington Post reports that Iraq's Sunnis are having second thoughts about the newly elected government, Elizabeth and Camilla have to take it into account.) But when they're in doubt about what position the real Iraqi government might take, the two "Iraqis" have a fortuitous fallback: They can check to see what the U.S. government thinks about the issue at hand.
Chris, the procedural whiz who serves as minister of agriculture and land affairs in the mock South African Cabinet I have been sitting in on, has also been assigned to a country with a zig-zagging policy on at least one issue: AIDS. But Chris and his colleagues are up to date on the latest twists and turns of South African policy, not to mention the sobering statistics about HIV infection in that country, the problem with high tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals, and the cultural sources of resistance to the ABC policy pioneered by Uganda—A for abstain, B for be faithful, C for condoms.
Chris, a stocky, smooth-talking boy with gravitas beyond his years, is an MUN publicist's dream delegate. "I'd like to get into politics," he tells me. "I went last year to this conference; I was invited by our old moderator who was looking at people in leadership positions and people who spoke well. I loved last year's conference so much that I did the summer program in international relations at Georgetown. That was a lot of fun. I've decided that I want to major in international relations." He is candid about his hopes for recognition: "I really would like to get an award. It would look good on my Georgetown application. But I'm not about to let that get in the way of my opinion." Make that the opinion of the minister of agriculture.
Chris is a savvy student not just of African demographics but of the way MUN modalities differ from one conference to another. He notes that Nick Hall, his cabinet colleague from Belfast, was thrown a bit by the Georgetown MUN's format, which allows for "unmoderated caucuses" in which formal recognition of speakers is dispensed with. "He didn't like it because people are yelling over other people," Chris recalls, adding with a certain Yankee pride: "It got pretty fast last night."
Listening to a prodigy like Chris, it is tempting to think that MUNers are born this way, tabling motions as they emerge from the womb. But most delegates are willing to credit their adult "moderators" for some of their success. Still, grown-up guidance can be a mixed blessing. That becomes clear Saturday night when I sit in on a moderators' meeting at which Grace Chang and Shaun Thompson, the unflappable Georgetown students who keep the MUN up and running, ask the delegates' adult mentors if they have anything on their minds.
Boy, do they! Some of the concerns raised at the meeting are perfectly reasonable, like a question about the surprise "crisis meetings" to which some MUNers will be summoned in the middle of the night. Will be there escorts for kids staying at the spillover hotel across the street? (Yes, if a moderator insists.) There is also a civil debate (and, in good MUN fashion, a vote!) over how much hilarity should ensue at the final committee sessions, where by tradition the kids loosen up by voting on joke resolutions. (These tend to be goofy and harmless: Resolved: That the United Nations congratulate the Patriots on their awesome Super Bowl victory.) But not all of the moderators' comments are moderate.
The problem? Violations of the delegate dress code. It isn't just that some kids are pulling their shirts up over their heads in an apparent simulation of a turban or burnoose, an intercultural faux pas. Those short skirts some of the girls are wearing don't comport with the prescribed "Western business attire," and neither do the chinos some of the preppier boys wear along with their blue blazers and rep ties. They don't wear chinos at the real U.N.! Some moderators seem to be afraid that not every delegate who says, "I kind of like the body" will be referring to the one that convenes in New York.
Grace and Shaun promise to talk to the chairs about the moderators' complaints, and the meeting adjourns. Tomorrow the delegates will get a break—a midmorning banquet with musical entertainment. If, that is, they survive those midnight crisis meetings—and the demarches from the fashion police.
From: Michael McGough
Subject: "I'm Going To Send a Fax to Condi!"
Posted Friday, Feb. 18, 2005, at 11:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON, D.C.; Feb. 6, 2005—Bizarrely, the banquet for the 42nd North American Invitational Model United Nations begins at 11 a.m. Sunday, which means that some of the delegates are no-shows. Presumably they're sleeping off their middle-of-night crisis meetings. "Too bad my neocon kid isn't here," one of the teachers at my table tells me. "You would have liked to meet him." And I would have—I have a soft spot for little ideologues. It's when they grow up that they're not so entertaining.
The delegates who are sleeping in are missing out. After a soulful Irish song from one of the Methodist College kids, some Georgetown a cappella groups run through their repertoires, from doo-wop to chamber music to Sounds of the '80s that were hits before some of the diplomats were born (this is the post-Wham! generation as well as the post-Cold War generation). Then it's back to work before the evening's festivities: first Super Bowl XXXIX (NAIMUN XLII's not the only event to use Roman numerals to inflate its importance), then the Delegate Dance at which, I hope, the kids will be able to leave their diplomatic personae at the door.
After spending my first night at MUN with the South African cabinet, I have been chamber-hopping, gaining entrée with my handwritten MEDIA nametag. If experienced MUNers dominate the committees, it seems that the general assemblies are where you're more likely to find the novices. Some of the speakers in the larger rooms are as eloquent as the crème de la crème in the committees, but I also see a lot of younger kids, including one I dub the Littlest Diplomat, a boy who, perhaps up past his bedtime, reclined on a couple of chairs while his elders, relatively speaking, kept talking.
In GA, speeches are brief and much of the emphasis is on the crafting and recrafting of resolutions, a task that requires delegates to spill out of the meeting room into the hall where co-sponsors can be lined up. Take the Committee on Disarmament and International Security, where I shadowed Ben Jeffery, another Methodist College Belfast student. As in the real United Nations, complaints from Western delegates about Iran's potential nuclear weapons program are countered by complaints from Arab and Islamic nations about Israel's nukes. The obvious solution is a compromise that incorporates elements of competing resolutions and smoothes over ideological differences, so Resolutions 1.0 and 1.4 give birth to 1.5. In these cases, lots of delegations can claim pride of authorship, and these hybrid resolutions tend to be successful. When one so-called "super-resolution" was unveiled, I overheard a young diplomat whose nation didn't join the party tell an ally, "We're finished—look at all those co-sponsors."
Delegates are expected to think on their feet, and the most interesting simulations put a premium on improvisation. The Georgetown student who chaired the British cabinet kept supplying the ministers with "this just in" bulletins and ticking time bombs à la the TV show 24. Filling in for Tony Blair, she kept the cabinet hopping with a scenario in which the United States decides to short-circuit the problem of Iran's nuclear weapons by assassinating an ayatollah and gives a heads-up to the Brits beforehand.
This sets in motion a sophisticated—and sometimes cynical—debate that touches in turn on the morality of assassination, its practicalities ("Poison is cheap"), and the short shrift given to international law by the United States. "Ask them about legality," one cabinet member suggests to "Blair" as she prepares to contact the White House. "They don't think in legal terms," another minister chimes in. The leader of the House of Lords wonders whether the assassination plan is designed "to stop nuclear proliferation or establish democracy. The U.S. thinks they go hand-in-hand." The secretary of state for Wales has another idea: "Let's go to the Security Council. Our troops are exhausted in Iraq." Pushing her cabinet forward, "Blair" says, "I'm going to send a fax to Condi," but the hawks in Washington are not to be deterred. A few minutes later comes a bulletin from the BBC: A former British citizen has just tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the ayatollah. That wily CIA!
And so it went for the rest of Sunday, not always with such high drama. By Super Bowl time, the diplomats have abandoned "Western business attire" for Abercrombie & Fitch pullovers and those dreaded short skirts and chinos. A really unmoderated caucus of MUNers from New England schools cheers the Patriots on to victory, and then it's time for the delegate dance, which I don't stick around for. I also miss the final session Monday morning at which the delegates are allowed to loosen up, within reason, though I later hear that hilarity ensued without incident. Oh, and the delegation from Methodist College returned to Belfast with laurels, including a best delegate award for James McMordie, the French envoy to the "Future Security Council," and honorable mentions for Nick Hall, Ben Jeffery, and several others. "Home safe," Nick tells me in an e-mail. "Bit of an anticlimax."
Michael McGough is editor at large in the Washington bureau of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2113599/
