05/08/2010
Kassasseya
14:30 minutes
LEAD IN:
Music Fade in (Omar Khairat)
The Model United Nations activity has been around for more than two decades at The American University in Cairo. Christine Kassasseya has the history of M-U-N at
A-U-C (0:12 Sec)
The activity began during the summer of 19-88, when a group of students from The American University in Cairo participated in the first inter collegiate Model United Nations held at The Hague, site of high school M-U-N sessions in 19-68. Since then, the delegation from A-U-C decided to organize a similar program in Egypt, where the Student Union sponsored the idea with the help of Office of Student Affairs. (0:25 Sec)
Doctor Mona Said, an Economics professor at The A-U-C attended the first Model United Nation conference, and remembers three remarkable people who proposed the activity. (0:11 Sec)
SAID "Three people I remember in my M U N experience; the first is Tim Sullivan who was professor of Political Science, and the key figure behind organizing it. Later he became a provost. The other two key student's organizers were Mohammad el Farnawany who worked on the Egyptian Foreign Service and who currently has quit a distinguished position as an advisor of the Minister of foreign affairs. And the third person is Mahdy El Fashany who was the President of the Student Union. And I see him on television as Palestinian intellectual; he is very outspoken of issues of the Arab-Israeli and Palestinaina-Israelian conflicts."(0:30Sec)
Throughout the years, M-U-N activity developed several times in order to meet the demands of the students and to give more opportunities for students to choose the council they are interested in. (0:10 Sec)
Hana Khaled, a president of the Economic and Social Council knows more about the history on the activity. (0:07 Sec)
KHALED "The first MUN conference started in 1988, back then it was only one council, it was the Security Council, and throughout the years they started expanding, and now after 23 years MUN evolved from one council to seven councils. Three of them are permanent councils; the Security council, the Human Rights council and International Court of Justice. And then there are other four councils that alternate every year."(0:29 Sec)
The important difference between the M-U-N activity and the real M-U-N has to do with the delegates who represent the countries, the limited time and the procedures for the debate. These criteria did not change at all since its emerging. Each council consists of a president, secretariat and a rapporteur. The council chooses a couple of students to represent a country. These countries are mixture between developed and undeveloped countries. Around four delegations are just set as observers, which mean that they do not vote.
HADDAD "During the conference, what happens is that developed countries provide solutions to the problems of undeveloped countries, and relating to the issues within the topics. At the end of the debate for each topic, resolutions which are formal documents comprised of the problems and their solutions are drafted and voted upon, once they have been voted upon, they are officially resolutions for that year. "(0:38 Sec)
The Model United Nations activity acquires students to work hard in order to successfully participate in the conference. Many of which face challenges. (0:09 Sec)
Laura Frega, a sophomore student who experienced M-U-N twice and won the best delegate on her second experience, describes the challenges and efforts she put for the conference. (0:10 Sec)
FREGA "Yes, I did find it challenging especially my first year; my council was the World Economic Forum. It was hard. In University they give you the material, C-I-M-U-N they link between the material and reality and what happens in the world. And because I did not have any background about economic situations of the world and global economy. I felt I was ignorant and I had to study a lot, like sometimes I would study for C-I-M-U-N more than studying for my regular classes. You get addicted to the work, you can't stop working and then you apply for the next year, like currently I am a secretariat at M-U-N and I am a director for the Economic and Social Council and I started off not knowing anything about economics in real life. Like now it's different, after you learn and you have so much knowledge, you feel like you are more valuable now and you can get in to discussions and you have an opinion and it's great." (0:64 Sec)
Students wait for the four day conference in order to express their thoughts about the topics and to try to reach some solutions. Yet, for the conference to succeed, the council provides eight sessions earlier, to widen the student's perspective about the two topics that will be discussed during the conference. So it takes the council one year to do preparations for the entire activity (0:20 Sec)
KHALED "Secretariats and head recruitments start every spring, and as soon as the new team is set, they start preparing for the conference for next year. During summer break secretariats start selecting topics, they start the background paper writing process which lasts for seven to eight months. Also the secretariats get trained for the conference for example; how to prepare sessions and so many other things until the conference in March, and so the process goes on for almost a year."(00:30 Sec)
During this year, organizer heads start interviewing and recruiting students for their committees. The idea of having organizers was brought later after the first conference was made, when the students realized the importance of having organizing teams to develop and prepare for the four day conference. (0:20 Sec)
Farida Amin, the organizer head and have been in the organizing teams for several years, states the following. (0:07 Sec)
NAT Sound fade in:
AMIN "Basically MUN started in 1989, and then after a year they realized that in order to be able to achieve the conference success we need an organizing committee, we need a committee to make finances, we need to publicize to bring delegates and so one. So from then onwards the organizing committee started to develop. And right now we have seven committee; fund raising, public relations, external public relations, information technology, publications, reception and more." (0:25 Sec)
NAT Sound fade ou
Additionally, three program committees emerged that perform extra work. These are the development program, awareness program and the environmental program. (0:09 Sec)
NAT Sound fade in
AMIN "Of course not all committees emerged at the same time. In 2004, the awareness program was the first of the three programs. And it basically started when one of the students who was is also a member of MUN, he was walking in the Greek campus and he found out that almost no one knows what is happening in Iraq and he got very frustrated and decided why not to have a program in MUN that makes people aware of what happens outside their bubble. So that is when the awareness program started. "(0:27 Sec)
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Recently, the committee realized that an environmental program is needed. (0:04 Sec)
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AMIN "In 2009, we decided to have the environmental program, which basically it raises awareness about the environmental issues and it also works off campus on different projects like recycling and so on. "(0:12 Sec)
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It sounds like tough work is made through out the year for the sake of the students. But after this hard work, does students really benefit from this? (0:08 Sec)
SAID "I was presenting the United States part of delegation. I don’t remember the details of what we talked about, but I just remember that it was very well organized and people were passionate about it. And it was interesting and fun to get to now the other point of view. At that time there was this usual animosity between the Arab world on one side and United States being perceived as so pro-Israel in their decision making and structure of governance. But I can't remember when the consensus part was, I probably picked something on economics issues there." (0:30 Sec)
Another student shares his experience on recent MUN experience (0:04 Sec)
HADDAD " I believe that the M-U-N activity develop personal skills that are needed in the market and of course for myself. One of the most important of those is the art of negotiating, researching of course debating, which is important in every adult's life regardless of their job. So personally I have learned how to express my self, my views and most certainly at the same time, respect other's and be more open to different points of view."(0:34 Sec)
FREGA " Ok, basically what had I acquired from this conference was how to learn, learning how to negotiate with people, how to debate, how to identify what is important and what should be discussed first. It was relevant to the delegation you take, like this year I had India, and so I had to contribute the most, because the topic we are talking about mainly affected my country. So you have to know according to what delegation you take, you have to speak and you have to fight for the rights of your country. And I learned a lot of things, I learned how to research and filter what I have required or what I got through the internet."(0: 40 Sec)
However, Doctor Mona Said is no longer able to see why M-U-N is not as important as people might see (0:07 Sec)
SAID "As for myself, I finished my PHD, went straight after that to work in an International organization, which is the International Monetary Fund. Now since then my views about all issue now became more critical and I wouldn’t say I had those ideas at the time I was a student at A U C, but having myself worked in an International organization whose governance is based upon board of directors that have representatives from all countries around the world. And I have seen what really matters and what makes a difference and why decisions look so scued against developing countries interests. They all look like you know why they simply represent what the major countries like G 7 basically on top of them, the US and the UK. And the answer is very simple because the way these institutions are structured. "(30 Sec)
The greatest seven countries always have the authority to present their overwhelming ideas and suggestions. They have the capability to impress other countries and at the same time, they do not give developing countries their rights for voting. And so it all serves the interests of the developed countries. (0:18 Sec)
SAID "The same go for the United Nations, and UN is further weaker organization in terms of how developing countries represent themselves. They seem to do a lot of work a lot of fields a lot of organizations, but very little impact is felt. There is suspicion rightly so, about their intensions when they conduct programs through the world, with few exceptions of course. You know organizations that are very humanitarian in nature of course have respectability most of the organization seems to be very politicized and represent the will of the G 7." (0:25 Sec)
From a personal experience, as a past M-U-N delegate of Norway, I realized that the same scenario applies on the activity, where the developed nations unite to help other developing countries but still have hidden agendas. (0:14 Sec)
SAID "So students can be encouraged to come with their alternative vision of what the UN can be. So suppose that every country around the world has equal voting rights and you know there is nothing called the Security Council decisions is dominated by the major five countries or any other decision dominated at that way. How would the same issues that are brought in front of the UN, how would they be voted on in a truly democratic structure. That would be much more interesting, perhaps the media can even write about. And this is I think is the true fight and the true issues that developing countries should be talking about. How to increase their share of decision making and governance on international level orders organizations. So they are truly, a truly United Nation rather than something that is having the name but the structure itself is very different" (0:40)
The Model United Nation activity has created opportunities for students to come up with new ideas and new principles. It shaped new thoughts and different generations. It taught them current problems and allowed them to develop skills of negotiation and collaboration. If students have the opportunity to represent a country and negotiate for their rights, then I can imagine them in real life fighting for the sake of well being. (0:25 Sec)
Christine Kassasseya, A-U-C
Credits:
Doctor Mona Said, an Economics Proffesor
Hana Khaled, Economic and Social Council president at the Model United Nations
Farida Amin, organizer head and have been in the organizing team for three years
Mark Haddad, delegate of three councils
Laura Frega, delegate of two councils
The Music by Omar Khairat
1. Abla Hekmet
2. El Bioot Asrar
3. Edam Mayet
Music Omar Khairat Fade out
Christine Kassasseya
Duration: 14:30 minutes
The journal :
The audio documentary is about the history of Model United Nations at the American University in Cairo. To do this documentary, it took me long time trying to collect bits and pieces of information from different people and from the archives as reference.
Regarding the history, the activity passed through several changes, but in general, it did not transform in huge terms since it is adapting the same criteria of the Model United Nations held in New York and the real MUN. Obviously, the first conference was very basic or in other words ' a trial of adapting something similar', but through out the years it started to improve till it reached its peak. The Cairo's International Model United Nations is considered to be one of the best through out the world and it receives first and second places each year.
Concerning my challenges, my president gave me access to the archives and was helpful during the interview. She provided me with a lot of information that I needed to make a story. At the same time, I sent emails to Doctor Mona Said and Doctor Pascal Gazelle asking them for an interview. Yet none answered. So I had to pass through their offices every now and then to get my interview done. And at last, I succeeded on interviewing Doctor Said, which was not happy at all about it, but still helped me when I insisted. Yet, I discovered that Doctor Gazelle is not available this semester as she is giving birth. But now I feel that it was going to be useless if I have interviewed two people from the same generation.
Later, I decided to interview an organizer to fill the missing parts, since the organizing team presence is important. So I passed through their booth and asked the head for an interview. At first, she was not pleased with the idea because she did not believe I was doing this for a class. But when she found the audio recorder, she felt content to some degree and was willing to help. Afterward, I heard about a guy who has been taking part in the MUN organizing committee for four years. And I was ready to interview him yet I never found him in the MUN room, nor near the booth. I asked people about him but I could not reach him.
I started to write my script after interviewing the three people listed above. Yet I found out that there is a lot of information missing. I decided to interview a forth person. So I asked my friends and they suggested Doctor Noha Bakr, a political science professor who teaches MUN related course. Nevertheless I was not lucky enough to find her. Then I thought of interviewing the provost Tim Sullivan, but I did not have the courage to. I felt I was going to waste his time.
Failing to interview a forth person on my last week frightened me a lot. I wrote a personal message on facebook asking people to help me with my problem. None of the replies useful. And I could not find any older contacts from the archives, like people from the 1990s or early 2000.
While I was completely dispread, I decided to take an overlook at my MUN year book, and I found three people that could help me since they live somehow close. So I called the three, and two were more than happy to help. I was further delighted that both had more than one experience and one of which was chosen as the best delegate.
At last, I know I failed to stick to the schedule. Yet I believe that the people I interviewed were the best I can get anyway, even if I started earlier, because I tried to reach people and I failed because they either did not answer or were not interested.
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