Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Women2Drive | ASMUN Junior Conference 2015

Hello lovelies. I hope you all had a great weekend. This weekend I participated in the ASMUN juniors conference. I was on the Human Rights Council where we discussed the situation of human rights in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia... I was the delegate for Saudi Arabia. 


The human rights in Saudi Arabia are practically nonexistent. Women can't drive. Apostasy is a crime punishable by death. They still hold public executions and floggings. The internet censorship is ridiculous. And freedom of speech is not a thing. I basically had to defend everything I stand against. 


It's really difficult to argue when you don't believe anything that comes out of your mouth. I sounded like a leader from a YA dystopian novel. Saying things like "we have a system for a reason. If you break the system you will be punished" and "we do what we must to keep the peace and order in society." I was basically President Snow. It was even harder given the fact my partner couldn't come, leaving me to defend a bunch of bullcrap by myself. 


I think I managed pretty well alone, though. I won the superlatives for Best Delegate and Best Speaker. I don't know understand getting best speaker because I forgot what I was going to say so many times. Here is an actual speech I gave in the informal debate:

"Honorable chair, honorable delegates: I would like to bring up the point that... I forgot. Never mind. Thank you."

Yup. I also ended one of my speeches with "amen" instead of "thank you". 

I did have the advantage of having English as my first language, giving me the opportunity to think a little quicker than the others. But seriously thank you ASMUN juniors for these lovely superlatives. 


My main strategy was drawing the attention away from my delegation. I would attack my enemies, Russia and Iran. I'd defend my ally, the USA. And I brought up any possible Human Rights violation I could find. I was desperate. 


I ended up telling Germany they should be grateful for the World Cup stadium, despite the treatment of the migrant workers, because they won the World Cup. I brought up the fact Brazil cut out scenes from the 50 Shades of Grey movie in the debate about free speech. Finally, to top it all off, every time Germany pissed me off, I sent them a note that said "remember the holocaust?" and demanded an apology from the delegation of Germany for the Holocaust, the reason the UN exists in the first place. 


In the end, I voted no to the resolution. With 5 yes votes, 1 no vote, and 2 abstains, the resolution passed. :( Oh well, the human rights council has no power anyway. All in all it was really fun. I even went home and looked up who represents the US in the UN and how one obtains that job. It turns out it's called a perm rep (permanent representative of the us in the un) and they're appointed by the president. This means unless I want to dive head first into US politics, I won't have this job. Which is find by me. 


After spending so much time defending the wrong side, I want to help the people of Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, all of these problems are internal and it's very hard for outside countries and organizations to really do anything. There is, however, a campaign called women2drive. This campaign tries to empower Saudi women by encouraging them to post a picture of themselves behind the wheel. I think the best thing we as outsiders can do for these women is spread the word. Make it known that people are not allowed to drive because they have an extra X chromosome. Two women tried to drive and they were arrested and charged with terror related crimes. Terror as in terrorist. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell strangers, post it on social media, write your congressperson. All we can do is talk about it. The more people who know, the bigger the fight against it will be. 


Thank you all for reading this post and thank you in advance for spreading the word about women being banned from driving. I really had a great time at this conference, I'm so glad to be working with the ASMUN seniors in these upcoming weeks. 

You are great. Learn something today. 

Byeeeee

Corie. 

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