Crisis BacauMUN 2021 review
Another outstanding MUN, another article. By now, you’ve probably heard the classic MUN article introduction more than enough times, so instead of boring you with the standard preamble, I’ll jump right into it and attempt to present everything that BacauMUN 2021 was for me, as Thomas Gage in the UK Room of the Crisis Committee.
Background
The Crisis committee usually works slightly differently to a normal General Assembly committee: the topics tend to be more dynamic, to allow for more heated debates, and delegates have to send directives in order to push the committee forward, which then also decide the outcome. Because of this, everything is much more fast-paced and intense than it would usually be. Our committee was a dual-room crisis on the American War of Independence in 1775: one half of the committee was the UK room, the other half was the American room, and we would send competing directives to put ourselves above the others and try to win the war. However, we had a few features that set the crisis apart from others, such as regular press updates (the press thus playing a big part of the overall outcome of the committee), and playing mini-games to determine who won the military battles.
Back in the 1770s, when our crisis took place, America was made up of 13 colonies, all of which were under British rule. After the Stamp and Townshend Acts and the Boston Massacre of 1770, when British soldiers killed five colonists in "self-defense", the colonies had had enough. This triggered the Boston Tea Party in 1773, whereby American Colonists dumped almost 600,000 pounds of tea into the Boston harbour, sending a message to the British. All of these years of tension culminated in a War of Independence (1775-1783).
Day 1
On the first day, we heard touching speeches from the Secretariat and Organising team in the Opening Ceremony, followed by speeches from the chairs - I honestly haven’t seen this before at any other MUN so it was a really nice touch, and got us better acquainted with all the committee chairs before any debate even began.
We then started our crisis with both rooms combined, to give us the exact historical moment where our committee began, namely just before the Boston Tea Party. After all the delegates gave opening speeches, which seemed to get more inflammatory as we went along, we got our first update: the Boston Tea Party happened! A few more general discussions on this matter and how the British should retaliate were held, before the two rooms split up and we were left on our own to make a battle plan for the next three days (or rather next three historical decades). My character, Thomas Gage, was the commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces in North America. Together with King George and the other two generals, we drafted a comprehensive and seemingly infallible battle plan, deciding to first attack from the North and South of the Colonies, then create a maritime blockade, and finally bring soldiers down through the Appalachian mountains in the West, surprising the Americans and hopefully winning it all.
Next, I sent a directive to have a talk with George Washington, since him and Gage were friends before the war, in order to then slip something in his drink, but the delegate representing him refused to meet with me. This made sense, because Thomas Paine’s Common Sense had just been released, exacerbating the Americans’ negative feelings towards us, which was closely followed by an invasion of one of our forts and an alliance with Portugal (we had to decipher a text to find this out, but Frederick North ruined it by using a cypher algorithm, earning him, me, and King George a punishment for “cheating”). Starting to lose control, we quickly snapped back by creating propaganda posters to ally with the African American slaves, and a slander campaign claiming that Hamilton and Washington were having an affair.
This angered the Americans, who then sent a ship with 300 servants infected with yellow fever, triggering an endemic in England and putting me, King George, and General Henry Clinton in quarantine with severe symptoms; we had to move separately from the others and attempt to find a cure or else risk dying a horrible death. We asked for help from homeopath natural healers and King George offered himself as a guinea pig, but unfortunately, because of a bad dice roll, we didn’t have any success and our poor leader couldn’t make it, although we did send an army of dead soldiers to the Americans to haunt them. As a result, North was named regent leader (since he was the prime minister), which was, looking back, a terrible idea: after hearing real-life breaking news about a British politician being stabbed, an anonymous directive was sent, ordering the same thing to happen to North, and this near-death experience made him start a Satanic cult and give an “I am God” speech - probably not his proudest moment.
With the endemic finally over, the two rooms were joined together one last time for the day, to play a game of battleships and determine the outcome of a battle. It was very intense and arduous, with all of us holding our breaths each time the other team would attack, and I have honestly never seen so many confused and chaotic faces in one room before, but by the end, it all paid off for us, because we won!
Day 2
We began the day, as one does, with a seance for King George III, to talk to our late leader one last time and hear his final wishes. Then, since Satan had already been summoned for the seance, she pushed us to form the MI6 (through a game of Hangman), and we struck a deal with her and sold four of our souls in exchange for troops. Later, we were called outside in front of the university, together with the other committees, to witness the coronation of King George IV, son of the late King George III, and a heartfelt speech was given by the new leader of Great Britain. Once back inside, I found out that I had been named prime minister by the king and was also his regent, since he was only 16 and thus could not take any administrative decisions. North had been put in charge of the newly formed MI6.
Our late leader; the seance; our dear Satan; King George IV's coronation speech
This was all followed by the kidnapping of William Franklin by the other room when he went to his mother’s funeral, being sent back with only one arm and one leg and being put in a mental hospital, before going back to spy on the Americans and all their dirty business. In the meantime, we played all sorts of mini-games, such as marbles, macao, and even did a Kahoot quiz, but it seemed that our luck from the day before was starting to fade, because we kept losing every single one of them. And, to add insult to injury, the Americans had managed to write the Declaration of Independence and came to us to read it and rub it in our face; after sending MI6 agents to steal it, we symbolically ripped it apart for all the world to see.
And then, tragedy struck one again: the other room had managed to poison our parliament. Even though we managed to save four of the five people poisoned by making a deal with the devil’s advocate, this still meant that one person would have to die. We spun the wheel of fate. We waited. We held our breaths, and all to find out that King George was killed again! He then became Thayandanegea, a representative of the Native Americans.We established the People’s Republic of Great Britain, with me as Prime Minister and North as President.
Chaos started to slowly ensue, because there was a bit of confusion in between the two rooms, especially regarding all the military action that had been taken, so in order to try to fix it, the chairs sent us on a small treasure hunt with riddles, allegedly to discover where the Declaration of Independence was being held. We had a bit of extra time before the whole situation got sorted out, so we started playing Măgărușul with a big pack of tea, throwing it from one to the other and unwittingly reenacting the Boston Tea Party, making this actually probably the most historically accurate thing from the entire conference.
When we were called back inside, we found out that on the final day, we’d be doing a mini ICJ committee, because the Americans had captured the North, we had captured the South, and this seemed like the only fair way to determine a winner. That night, we had to prepare for the case, whereby America was suing Frederick North and the UK “on the grounds that the Americans are not represented in the British Parliament and their independence is not recognised”. Even so, after frantically trying to build our case for an hour, we still had time to socialise and party with the other delegates, making some truly unforgettable memories.
Day 3
At last, it was the final day, and so, with very little sleep, we tried to do an ICJ case, even though most of us had never done this style of debate before (lots of thanks to Chair Ingrid from the Security Council and Secretary General Raluca for helping us out!). Washington opened the floor, wrapped in an American flag and talking about tyranny, followed by North, who outlined our case and mentioned how ungrateful the Americans were. Then, Thomas Jefferson raised the other side’s main arguments, talking about the Sugar, Currency, Stamp, and Tea Acts, and I broke down our team’s arguments into two main points: we had actually given them representation, and we were right to not recognise their independence, since it came during the war, not after the conflict ended. Finally, John Sullivan delivered the rebuttal for the Americans, and King George rebutted for our side.
It was then time for witness questioning, and, after we finally figured out how to properly ask short and uncomplicated questions, we started getting (mostly) relevant answers from the witnesses, who were all happy to help out and support their respective sides. Once this was all over, we rushed to get to the General Assembly in time, where all the other committees’ resolutions were discussed and the outcome of our crisis was announced: both sides kind of won! The Americans managed to keep the North, while we held on to the South, thus splitting the Colonies in two; even though it wasn’t a full win, we did better than the real UK, who lost the War of Independence, so needless to say, we were all very happy. North and Washington gave speeches, followed by a truly emotional closing ceremony.
Concluding remarks
I think this was the first MUN that made me cry both tears of joy and sadness as we left the venue, and it’s honestly all too much to fit in one article, too many memories and amazing moments that I wish I could go back and relive one more time. It was my first crisis (and also my first ICJ, if I can call it that), but definitely not my last: it was so different and dynamic, and truly challenged me think outside the box, whilst also giving me more freedom to be creative and depart from the usual static debate (and, especially with all the mini-games that our victory depended on, it felt like we were going through a real-life Squid Game).
I can honestly say that it is one of the best MUNs I’ve ever been to, and it’s all thanks to the amazing Secretariat, Organising team, chairs, delegates, and press corps, who were given a more crucial role than usual. I think that BacauMUN 2021 will go down in MUN history, especially because of the countless inside jokes and because it was most likely the last physical MUN this year; I cannot think of any better way to end off this MUN season, so truly, thank you so much to everyone who made this experience everything that it was!
Editor’s Note (aka Chair Ruxi):
I can happily confirm Maria’s detailed rundown of events. You cannot imagine how much fun we had as chairs going through the directives, coming up with mini-games, and sending out some mind-boggling updates. Big thanks to the delegates, staff, and amazing organizing team for making all of this possible!
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