A World of Deception, Thrill, and Hope

By Margaret Mattes, Princeton High School
I have participated in the United Nations Security Council and the 2005 Emergency Presidential Task Force and the Ukrainian Cabinet. I have lived through the Iran-Contra Affair and the 1789 Estates-General meeting and the Constitutional Convention. I have resolved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and human trafficking and instability in Southeast Asia. I will admit that I have done so fictitiously, but that does not mean it was any less meaningful or exciting.
The scope of Model United Nations (MUN) is both astounding and fascinating. Organized around several large college-run conferences that bring together many high schools, Princeton High School’s MUN club is the largest extracurricular in the school with around two-hundred members. Allowing students to take on roles both genuine and pretend, high schoolers assume a specific character for a weekend of debate and parliamentary procedure in order to resolve world issues, anything from economic crises to civilian safety in insurgency war-zones.
For weeks before a two or three day conference, research is done and papers are written in order to learn the stance of an individual or a nation, depending on the specific committee. And then, after an opening ceremony during which a keynote speaker repeats for the hundredth time how this generation has to fix all the problems in the world, a bunch of high schoolers are thrown in a room to debate and resolve real-world issues.
And every time it amazes me how seriously we take our charge. It is my guess that, if polled, most adults would suggest that if you stuck a bunch of high schoolers in a room nothing would get done, except perhaps venting about school and checking Facebook every few minutes. Yet, we prove them dead wrong. Sure, there are the occasional dance parties and the intermittent recitations of the “Lone Wolf” speech from The Hangover, but, overall, the effort and dedication is astonishing. Students take it upon themselves to truly grasp the issues at hand, internalizing the competition between the British and French Empires for land in the New World or the frustration of impoverished nations at the stinginess of the industrialized world.
Depending on the conference, these committees can include anywhere from three hundred to ten high schoolers, led by a “dais” of two or three college students who regulate debate. Discussion ranges from formal speeches, known as moderated caucus, to working the room, un-moderated caucus, to presenting draft resolutions concerning a particular topic. The goal of any of this is to pass resolutions that address and settle a particular issue.
In recent years, more and more of the committees are experimental and crises driven, meaning that these bodies are not part of the real United Nations and that debate is largely centered around imaginary crises. There can be committees such as King Macbeth’s Council or the Republican National Convention. And the actions of these committees are driven not by information that can be gathered before the conference, but instead by fabricated crises. On a recent escapade to Russia in 1917, a mysterious bodyguard assassinated Lenin, a formerly loyal Bolshevik kidnapped Trotsky, and the “Mad Monk” Rasputin not only married the resurrected Princess Anastasia, but also gained control of the entire government. But in between the intrigue and deceit, there was substantive, significant debate challenging the pragmatic implementation of communism and the fate of the Russian state. At the end of the conference, I had a much better grasp on communistic ideology, the history of the Russian revolution, and the immense challenges facing the Russian leaders at this time.
Reading the newspaper or flipping on TV or walking past the tabloids in the supermarket, it is easy to think that this generation is the most frivolous and the most burdened ever. At every family gathering, there is always the half-hour when the adults talk about all the problems in the world and then, after a collective sigh, hopelessly glance at me. Indubitably, someone says something about how my generation has to fix all of the problems in the world, while really implying that a nuclear bomb will probably be dropped at any moment.
And yet, there is also the much more uplifting moment during a MUN conference when I am arguing with someone about whether it is better to build schools or hospitals in the average Afghani town or compromising with a fellow delegate on the borders of the new Ukrainian state, when I realize that we can do this if we will it. The world may be more messed up than ever before, but we, members of the future generation, may also be more prepared and more enthusiastic and more optimistic than ever. If we can compromise and debate and resolve issues in this fake world, I can only dream of what we will do in the real one. I guess we will just have to wait and see.