Sorry for making an attention-whoring thread, but today sucked and I really gotta vent.
Today was the second Susquehanna Valley Model UN competition, and I am in the General Assembly as The Netherlands. I came in feeling prepared and confident; the topic of discussion was racism and xenophobia (continuation of the last time) and I had prepared a speech as well as possible points to hit at other times.
Didn't go so well. Thanks to everyone motioning after every speech for some sort of moderated or unmoderated caucus (and then making another motion if the first one failed) and spending inordinate amounts of time on meaningless crap (we spend at least 5 minutes arguing over a 1-minute extension of time), we only got through 5 names on the speakers' list (speaking time is 2 minutes+1 minute rebuttal+30 second surrebuttal) between 9:30 and 1:30. The "winner" of each competition is decided by four awards given out in each committee (GA/SC/WHO/ICJ) for Statesman, Consensus-Builder, Parliamentarian, and Chairman's Choice.
I hope I don't come off as a bragger, but I'm one of my team's "big guns"; I've gotten several awards before, and I've taken the
de facto role of coaching new members. This time, it seemed like my best shot was at Statesman (best representing your country). However, most of the attention went to an insufferable little girl who represented Nigeria. In her proposed resolution (most of the signatories were other developing nations), she first blamed Europe for all of her continent's problems (as I represent a former colonial power who gives plenty in aid, I conceded partial responsibility from the West, but she came off as implying that Africa was a shining Eden before contact with Europe and that all of its problems stem from imperialism).
Then things started to get weird. Her resolution focused on Africa, which she described as the "biggest victim of racism". Digging deeper, she said or at least strongly implied that blacks both in and outside Africa cannot help themselves, and the West must completely foot the bill. Needless to say, most people (especially the delegates who happened to be of African descent; did I mention that the Nigerian delegate is an Asian?) found this rather racist in a patronizing way. I had sparred with her earlier in the day and in the first competition in December, and like about half of the delegation was eager to pounce.
However, the chair of the GA also happens to be the advisor for our school's Model UN, and is (rightly) worried about any accusations of bias towards us. However, this at least seemed to manifest itself in a "I will go out of my way to call on other people to ask questions to Nigeria and ignore my own team" way. Thus, I never got the opportunity to slam her as I had prepared (also, it's funny that a nation that executes gays is crowing about being oppressed). And she got the Statesman award.
Of course, sometimes perceptions aren't reality. I talked it over with the teacher on the bus ride over, and it seemed that a big problem was that our school's delegation chose to sit in the back, where we were hidden behind a swarm of other people raising their country placards to get on the speakers' list, and in fairness I had also spoken several times before (once on the speakers' list and a few rebuttals). He actually felt pretty bad about giving the Statesman award to Nigeria given her method of defending her resolution (which thankfully was soundly defeated in final voting procedure), but decided that she actually did a good job of representing her nation's interests. I disagree with the decision, but I understand the rationale.
Okay, that's out of my system.
