Amirul’s Experience in Model United Nations

By Amirul Haziq, Class of 2019

To have the power to lead a country towards the journey in achieving freedom, equal civil rights, clean water and many more life or death aspects, that is what I perceive of Model United Nations (also known as Model UN or MUN). For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be amongst the group of people who could bring a positive difference to the world, but just did not know how, thankfully I stumbled upon MUN which served as a platform that enabled me to get a few steps closer in learning how to achieve that dream.

Therefore, I am quite sure that many of you have that big dream and ambition inside you but have not been given the right platform where you can explore your individual skills  and reach your maximum potential in whatever field of desire you wish to succeed in. Fortunately, you are about to learn how to achieve that through your journey with MUN.

What is MUN?

MUN is an academic activity where the world’s most pressing issues the United Nations tackles are debated and solved using the same procedures as the UN. MUN’s are hosted all around the world from Oxford university to Harvard and right here in Malaysia.

However in simpler terms, MUN is a platform whereby, we millennials can indulge ourselves with pools of knowledge to represent a country to combat a myriad of world renowned issues that we face today through discussions and debates with representatives from other countries.

Most conferences are held for three days with various stages throughout such as the opening speeches that are to be given by each delegate (participant), debates of sub issues of the main topic, group discussions and drafting of the final resolution which is essentially a document that contains all the agreed upon solutions to combat the main issue being discussed.

What I find relatively interesting about MUN is that we get to choose the countries we want to work with in the conference to form country blocs and overcome those crucial issues just like in reality such as the European Union, ASEAN, etc.

Early MUN Conferences

This is where the honest side of my journey comes in. During the early conferences I attended when I was in my junior years such as MNMUN and MONMUNIC, I must personally say that I was rather laid back and did not prepare enough for it.

I remember walking into the conference room with only a pen and notepad thinking that the research I had done was sufficient enough, but clearly it was not. I remember being very intimidated at that time as the other delegates had files consisting of stacks of research. Frankly, I could not come up with substantial arguments when I was giving my speeches because of my lack of research and ended up giving only a few normative speeches.

However, at the end of one of the conferences, I ended up telling myself that my next MUN was not going to be like this, and that I was going to do as much research as I could to portray a much better performance the next time I joined, and not long after that, I found out about AYIMUN.

Asia Youth International Model U.N 2020 (AYIMUN)

Fast forward to 2019, I heard from a friend that there was a huge international MUN coming up at Kuala Lumpur with over 1,000 delegates participating. At first I was overwhelmed but sooner I realized that this could be the time where I push myself to reach my greater potential. The event took place in February, 2020 but all delegates were required to submit in the position paper (a paper that states our country’s stance and proposed solutions to combat the issue discussed) in January.

The council I chose to enter was the Social, Cultural Humanitarian Council (SOCHUM) where we discussed the topic of ‘Combatting Xenophobia and Bigotry in Sovereign Countries’ where I represented the Republic of Belarus. Initially it all seemed too much for me as I had to read through countless documents of research online with all the sophisticated words but after a while, I got the hang of it and it was definitely worth it.

A Global Experience

On the day of the conference itself, I was much more prepared than before knowing that I had done more than enough research and preparation this time. The conference was far more monumental than the other MUN’s I had joined as on the first night itself, there was a grand symposium with a panel of speakers consisting of a foreign diplomat from Australia and the President of United Nations Youth Malaysia.

That talk truly inspired me as I learnt that to change the world for the better, we need to start with something small first and do our best to make a positive impact in our community especially during hard times like now, with the coronavirus we are battling. Moreover, the delegates that joined were from multifarious of places around the world such as Indonesia, India, Africa, Spain, Russia and many more.

It was overall a great experience for me as my council succeeded in passing a resolution and that I managed to network with people from all around the globe especially during the Cultural Night. By joining this conference, I can thankfully say that my personal skills mainly being public speaking, persuasion, leadership and writing have been enhanced which is exactly why anyone is capable of doing this too.

Advice for KYS students

With the above sharing, I am confident that most of you are now motivated and excited. I hope that many of you will join future MUN conferences. Unfortunately, most MUN’s this year have been postponed to a later date due to the pandemic outbreak but that is no reason why you should hold back as you will most likely still be able to join in 2020 itself.

Hence, all students are eligible to join the KYS MUN Club currently being lead by Muhammad Azmeer. Therefore, I urge every one of you out there who has an ambition in making the world a better place to join MUN if you would like to come closer in making your dream a reality.