Interconnectivity Reforms the UN - OXIMUN 2019

Written by: Tushar Mehra

Travelling to a place like Oxford is always a mesmerising experience, irrespective of the purpose of the visit; to be in a place so richly steeped in history, in a place resting on the shoulders of hundreds of world-renowned legends is a great honour, let alone a pleasure.

 And so, the prospect of me going to the University of Oxford for an MUN conference was obviously very exciting. Sure, there was the pressure of having to perform and the prospect of having to face some of the brightest minds in the country, but as any sane (and cringey) economist would tell you, that’s a sunk cost when you’re at LSE. Sitting in lectures without a clue about what’s going on and literal genii surrounding you is no better than having to fight just as bright minds in a hypothetical Greco-Persian War (more on that later).

Regardless, I just knew I had to be a part of the intellectual challenge that beckoned just a two-hour bus journey away from me. From MUN Bootcamp itself, I was hooked onto the drug that crisis promised to be; an imaginative, no holds barred thoughtscape generated by outrageously well-dressed nerds (read Max and Jonas). What was there not to like? With the potential reward of having lifelong bragging rights (“oh, by the way, I won best in cabinet at OXIMUN”) and the thrill of being an ostracised general (see below), I was sold.

Waking up that morning, however, felt atrocious; there was a certain dryness in my mouth that comes with incredibly low sleep, and a fear in my heart that spawns from being grossly underprepared. I had only a couple of hours to fully immerse myself into my new avatar, Xanthippus, formerly the most powerful man in Athens, now ostracised (exiled in essence) as a result of a complicated Greek political manoeuvre involving Archonships, anger and betrayal. In layman’s terms, my primary aim was to kill/replace my chair, Themistocles (the person who ostracised me) and regain power and respect for my family. Not an easy task.

 Now, don’t get me wrong here, MUN is heavily research based. To come out on top, you want to be a technocrat with a personality, a knowledge-hungry dictator who has the ability to manage people.  Yet crisis, on the other hand, is far more nuanced; it’s not half as much about the facts as it is about having the core skills. Of course, that’s not to say I can write directives without any mental strain, but the structure of crisis meant that I wasn’t in as much trouble as I make out I was; doing little research wasn’t going to hurt me as much as it would have hurt had I been in another committee. As we shall also find out, leeching off other people’s research is often more effective (and more efficient) than doing your own.

 So after what was a (somewhat) productive bus journey doing as much research as I could, we finally reached Oxford. The best part about going to a university like Oxford or Cambridge is regardless of how trash your actual content is, the environment makes up for it. Case in point: the opening ceremony. While the Sheldonian Theatre was gorgeous in all its glory, the same cannot be said about the opening ceremony itself; talk about 9 months of preparation and false promises about the smoothness of interconnectivity left a sour taste in the mouth, not least because it ate into our lunchtime when we could have been filling our stomachs and making merry.

 Still, you aren’t reading this blog to find out about the lowlights or read about the boring bits, so I’ll spare you an overly long description of the garbage that was the rest of the first day. Low on sleep and low on research that I was, I was left out of all of the discussions, and the discussions that were taking place were ones I may not have even wished to be a part of anyways. “Let’s do this” was the buzz phrase in the Athenian cabinet, an open-ended statement of intent, but not much else apart from that. So much was said about what was going to be done yet nothing happened; if anything, in that space of time we lost Alexander of Macedonia to the other cabinet as a result of him feeling just as left out as I was. Wholeheartedly empathising with his sentiments, I thought Persia was the place for me too.

In an Oxford crisis, I should add, there are three cabinets: one was the Persians (the cabinet set to invade Athens), the other was the Athenians (the one I was in) and the third was the Spartans, a cabinet that wasn’t really sure whether they wanted to back their traditional rivals Athens against the behemoth that was Persia, or side with the latter and hope that they don’t get betrayed. In this overly abrasive, cold environment without any agenda on what to do, I decided to take the “forbidden” (and subsequently most appealing) route of defecting to the Persian cabinet.

 And this is what may have cost me the award in the end. I was promptly imprisoned thanks to a series of failings and lack of initiative on my part, and it was only after a massive public apology that I was freed. Gone were my chances of undoing my ostracism, and gone were my chances of gaining the cabinet’s trust (or so I thought).

Meanwhile, other LSE delegates were grappling with finding their respective committees, spread out amongst the medieval Oxford colleges. It was clear that interconnectivity was at the forefront of the day, with coffee breaks resulting in the whole contingent of intermediate committee members standing outside Exeter College.

 In intermediate committees, Team LSE freshers came face to face with other delegations from the European continent, and quickly established friends and foes. Over in advanced committees, Sarah in OPEC (Angola), Kelvin in IMF(UAE)  and Flavia in UNSC (Saudi Arabia) led discussions for their respective delegations and TeamLSE surrounding the theme of petroleum trading, with Kelvin’s matter-of-fact and deep knowledge of the topic in the IMF proving particularly strong. In a clear victory for Interconnectivity, Rory dominated discussions not only within the G20, but also dealt effectively with delegations from Finland and Estonia from the EU who demanded the US’ unwavering support to providing the majority of funding for the EU’s climate strategy. Meanwhile over in the EU and the AU, Jack and Mazibah proved that all countries, regardless of their size, could have a decisive influence over negotiations and proved essential in the formation of blocs. Francis dominated discussions surrounding the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative over in ASEAN (pronounced ah-see-an not ASIAN) with UNSOC President Lina acting as chair. 

Back in crisis, half asleep and halfway out of the cabinet, I headed to the curry house for our committee dinner unhappy and unmotivated, the spices of the food only somewhat stimulating any enthusiasm in my mind. 7 hours of sleep and a bit of scheming later, day two gave me some hope, hope I had to capitalise on.

And to some degree, I did. Back in my crisis committee, the turning point of the day was the Athenian Civil War, kickstarted by an overzealous Cambridge History student playing the part of my in-character friend Aristides. Having aims of becoming Archon, he organised an attack with unfettered brutality, an attack so good that I was borderline certain that purely on the plan, he would steamroll the true Athenians. Had he won, Themistocles would have been deposed, and I would have become the primary war general and managed the navy. Only thing was, I wouldn’t be Archon; he would have given that to Cimon, or as we know him, Manas, your favourite overexcited IR student. To hedge my bets (and to prevent a permanent loss of my Archonship chances), I played the role of a double agent, promising to side with Aristides (and warning him of the dangers Cimon presented, who I knew was a double agent as well) but also giving my word to Themistocles, promising to be a double agent on her side  as well (my chair was a lady even though Themistocles was actually a man, explaining the use of the pronoun “her”). 

While it was a tough game to play, I managed to construct a win-win scenario; Themistocles ended up victorious, I was taken back on the Athenian side and given that I had served Athens well throughout the day, I ended up unostracised for my loyalty. The icing on the cake was a successful terrorist attack on a Macedonian military academy engineered by myself; this was a huge blow on Persian strength, and I was finally back at my peak. The Maths Ball followed, and it was undoubtedly gorgeous in every sense; the free drinks, free pizza, beautiful people and stunning venue added up to a solid evening and suddenly I thought I was back in the game. 

The final day almost culminated beautifully; encouraged by the backroom, I pursued an assasination attempt on Cimon using poisoned pottery, truckloads of loopholes, and an absolute age of thinking. For a man who had so much security, it was obviously a tough task, but I knew it had to be done if I needed to have a chance of obtaining the title of Archon. My hunger was there, my directives were there, the backroom was there, but to cut the long story short, it was close but no cigar; in an effort to kill Themistocles, I ended up losing everything, and subsequently the award. At the awards ceremony, Aristides nicked it from under my nose; rumour has it that I had the second-highest number of votes in the backroom for best in cabinet, but that’s besides the point. I had come close, but hadn’t crossed the line.

However, Oxford was an incredible learning experience and sure, I might sound corny, but I’ve grown a lot from it in the aftermath. I met great and smart people, and seek to become a better delegate holistically; and most of all, I seek to learn from my failings. If there’s anything I’d tell future OXIMUN delegates as MUN Officer it is to be ambitious, aggressive and confident; Oxford is a beautiful place and a beautiful experience, and it’s very much there for the taking.

We would like to congratulate all of #TeamLSE's individual award winners:

ASEAN : Francis Acevedo, Best Delegate

Crisis: 2nd Greco-Persian War (JCC) - Alec Caruana, Directors’ Award

African Union: Mahrukh Qazilbash, Highly Commended

EU ECOFIN: Jack Alscher, Honourable Mention & Position Paper Award

IMF: Kelvin Cheung, Position Paper Award

We also want to congratulate the rest of our delegation for their hard work and leadership skills at the conference:

OPEC: Sarah Zaman

UNSC: Flavia Estelle

G20: Rory Moore

2nd Greco-Persian War: Tushar Mehra

2nd Greco-Persian War: Manas Chawla

And a special shout-out to our chairs and backroomers, who did an incredible job facilitating debate at the conference:

Lina Jeffcock: Director of ASEAN

Yasmin Frischemeier: Director of ILO

Max Hammer: Assistant Director of Crisis

Jonas Bokelmann: Crisis Backroom

Lastly, a special thank you to our Head Delegate, Yasmin Frischemeier for her support and hard work organising #TeamLSE’s trip to OxIMUN!