Imperial College takes over LSE

A delegation of the ICMUN society took part in the LSEMUN, held on the main campus at LSE in early February. This is different than most of the MUN conferences as it’s completely focused on Crisis committees, an unusual and slightly underrated ‘mode’ in MUNs. In Crisis, delegates don’t represent countries or international organisations, but individual people in various historical or fictional contexts; everything is based on your ability to devise a good strategy to achieve your goals and react to random events that can easily stop your rise to power. People in the same cabinet cooperate and usually have a common purpose. However, betrayals are frequent and everyone should always watch their back to survive (yes, characters can be fictionally killed): your number of choices is limitless, as long as you communicate your clear strategy to the Chairs - those that run the committee.

For example, as one of the conspirators in the 1605 Gunpowder plot, our delegate ingratiated himself with the king, then faked his own death, hoping to lure King James to the funeral of a casket full of gunpowder. However, a traitor betrayed us to the Crown’s spies and the king sent a body double. Yet all was not lost. King James, now emboldened, attended the state opening of Parliament the following day and, with more gunpowder stashed below the House of Lords, was blown up. Funnily enough, due to a miscommunication between spies, an innocent greengrocer was accidentally blown up also.

In the EU Parliamentary Elections Committee, our delegate represented Tsipras, who was nominated as the spitzenkandidat for the GUE/NGL group and campaigned along Frederica Mogherini, the nominee of the Social Democrats (S&D) for the same position. The far-right ENF gained the largest number of seats, but it was left out of power because the S&D abandoned the GUE party to combine forces with the EPP, resulting in a host of centrists assuming the top posts in the Commission. While someone manufactured a scandal about Nigel Farage and Silvio Berlusconi hanging out in a brothel, which led to the now famous hashtag #NaughtyNigel, Pablo Iglesias and Tsipras decided to support the ENF’s candidates as a protest vote against the Social Democrats who decided to betray them.

Another real-life House of Cards episode took place in the Financial Crisis Committee, where our delegate managed to imprison some of the world’s most important CEOs as part of investigations following the 2008 crisis. Fast-forward and the role of District Attorney was changed to FBI Director, leading to meddling with internal elections, thanks to some foreign countries, in order to make Obama lose the 2012 elections to the former CEO of JP Morgan.

In contrast to the previous two crises, the Algerian War Committee was particularly bloody (one delegate was killed twice on the same day, as two different characters). Our delegate managed to stay alive as the Algerian minister Lakhdar Ben Tobbal, while organising the resistance against the French army. Although there were many successful killings, including that of President De Gaulle, a truce brought forward by the French had to be accepted. Nevertheless, the conclusion was quite shocking, as the enemy managed to build a nuclear bomb which was launched on Algiers. A drastic decision which, had the conference continued, could have favoured the Algerian cause: our delegate was ready with part of the army to counterattack, so who knows how it could have ended?

Finally, things were a little different in the Lord of the Rings Committee - it was essentially a mix of Dungeons and Dragons with Model United Nations. On the one hand, one of our delegates declared his character a god, which resulted in his untimely death, while our other elf character delegate managed to restore the kingdom of Mirkwood after rising up the ranks from a viceroy to a high elven king. Finally, the side of good prevailed against Sauron’s army thanks to the dwarf betrayal of Sauron (yes, you read that right) at the end of what was a fulfilling and certainly special weekend.

Most of us were new to this new kind of conference, but we indeed managed to perform very well: with one best delegate award, a commendation and, most importantly, only one loss suffered (I know, it sounds weird saying this). Our experience was yet another example of how ICMUN delegations can leave a mark in these conferences.

To find out more about ICMUN, visit us every Thursday from 6 to 8pm in Huxley 308, check our Facebook page or email modelun@ic.ac.uk