Model UN charts its territory
From left, Patrice-Eric St-Louis, Jason Hatrick (leaning on podium), Anjan Sohi, Mahmoud Al-Ken, Karan Shanmugarajah (seated in back). Seated at desks, from left: Mohammad Kanju, Robert Goodridge, Daniel Ross and Soppo Gomez at a regular model UN meeting. The team is preparing to compete at McGill later this month.
Photo by marc losier
From Jan. 26 to 29, 16 Concordia students will test their mettle at the annual McGill Model United Nations Conference (McMUN).
The members of Concordia’s model UN group (CONMUN) are looking forward to the event. Participating delegations come from as far as the Philippines and Lebanon.
“A lot of people get a little nervous before their first conference,” said Jason Hatrick, CONMUN’s vice-president of delegations.
Hatrick, the student organization’s member of longest standing, said about half of the Concordia delegates registered for McMUN have never participated in a university-level Model UN event. “Most people come out of their first conference looking forward to the next time.”
The event will include approximately 1,400 delegates, participating in 23 different committee simulations. “We tend to win a couple of awards at McGill every year,” Hatrick said.
CONMUN holds simulations every Fridays in the Hall building, at which students play UN delegates debating issues of international importance. As many as 30 students attend the sessions, which follow UN procedure.
Members debate geopolitical issues such as Iran’s nuclear program, tensions between Syria and Lebanon, and the threat of an avian flu pandemic. In a recent simulation, students debated Kurdish self-determination within the six Middle Eastern nations where Kurds live in large numbers.
“Rather than researching just the subject matter and what’s going on, you have to research your country’s stance,” Hatrick said.
Model UN groups attract a lot of political science students interested in foreign relations, but participants come from other departments as well.
“Any shyness I had about speaking in public groups, well, model UN basically beat that out of me,” Hatrick said, referring to his first “diplomatic negotiations” in front of 150 other delegates.
He said researching for the simulations and competitions gives students an academic advantage if they can weave the knowledge gained through CONMUN into their studies.
First-time participant Moham-mad Kanju would agree. He sought out the group because of his belief in the importance of the real United Nations and his desire to learn more about it. “This will definitely help me in my future,” he said.
Hatrick estimated that CONMUN is among the top two or three Canadian model UNs in terms of number of medals won, and he’s optimistic about competitions this year.
“We brought home two awards from Washington, last October,” he said. “I expect we’ll continue to do well. Many of our newer members show a great deal of promise.”