OIC BMUN LXVII

Hello Delegates!  As the big weekend approaches, I wanted to discuss exactly how we got here. I remember while I was in highschool MUN was a popular club everyone wanted to join and had been going on for years before I even started school, but it got me thinking, how did the concept of MUN even begin? Well, back in 1949,  St.Lawrence University hosted the first 3 day conference. It was initiated by Dr. Harry Reiff, the Head of the History and Government Department. The conference was a great success and continued year after year until other schools in the vicinity got word. Slowly, other Model UN conferences were developed at Berkeley, Harvard and National Model United Nations (NMUN NY) as well as many other colleges and universities. Post this, it spread to the East, South Asia, Middle East and Africa and was no longer limited to just universities. Many educators saw that MUN was a great way to hone public speaking, communication and critical thinking skills.  Fun

Hello once again delegates! The entire dais of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been busy grading your papers this past week and putting the final touches on committee planning and we are honestly so thrilled with all of your work and can’t wait till conference-time to see you guys in action! For my final blog post, I wanted to focus on an angle of the first topic that doesn’t typically receive as much traffic as it should. When we analyze the specific workings of the OIC and its member states, we tend to overanalyze (which is, at times, necessary) the Middle East when the OIC, in reality, covers much of the MENA region, which also includes Northern Africa or, as it is alternatively known, the Maghreb. The Maghreb exists in an extremely unique position geographically and culturally; many of the Muslim-majority members of the Maghreb - Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia in particular - form a unique bloc due to relative proximities of Europe and the Middle Eas

Hello delegates! Worried about college applications? Trying to get into UC Berkeley? Here is the secret formula to get into the renowned University of California, Berkeley! . . . Just kidding! But I promise that come Sunday afternoon of conference, we will leave ample time to answer questions about our college experience, life at Berkeley, and our high school college application struggles :) Before worrying about submitting that college application, I encourage you to focus on doing well and having fun during BMUN conference by first reviewing our topic synopsis! A quick second glance-through can do wonders for you come conference. Something I have noticed throughout my years working with delegates is that showing sincere hard work and effort into everything you do, such as Model UN, will ultimately pay-off in the long run. I promise you, the work you put in now will shine through on your college essays later. Just think about it! If you are putting Model UN on your co

Hello Delegates! Hope you've been having a great week and we are super excited to meet you all very soon. As you know from reading the topic synopsis, the first issue that we are going to discuss is on the Empowerment of Muslim Women. Therefore, this week I've decided to discuss a pressing issue within the Arab community and the Western World regarding an app called 'Absher'. Absher is a mobile application that was launched in Saudi Arabia by the Interior Ministry in 2015 with the goal of creating an online government platform for its citizens to free people from bureaucratic inefficiency for day-to-day services. The app allows citizens to make appointments, renew IDs (drivers licenses, car registration and other services), check visa validity and make appointments at hospitals etc. What seems like an app that can only bring ease towards its citizens has in fact stirred response from the international community. This is due to the fact that one of the features

Hey guys! As conference is quickly approaching, I thought it would be beneficial to provide you guys with a basic background as to 1) what the "Organization of Islamic Cooperation" really means and 2) address how this may impact the manner in which you debate come March. Officially, the main objective for the OIC is to preserve Islamic social and economic values, increase social, economic, political, scientific cooperation, international peace, and security. The international organization was established in 1969 and consists of 57 member states. So what does this entail? The OIC is renowned as the collective voice of the Muslim world, largely because the collective population of OIC states is over 1.9 billion people. This includes individuals of all origins and is not excluded to Middle Eastern states with an Arab-majority. Rather, the OIC is an over-arching umbrella that spreads across all states of the world, and even includes countries such as Malaysia and Sudan.

Hello once again delegates! The entire dais of the OIC is looking forward to reviewing and offering you feedback on your position papers in the next week or so. We appreciate your hard work and diligent research, and we cannot wait to meet you all at conference March 1st! In the meanwhile, we have found a good resource for you all as you continue to prepare for upcoming debate! One of the most important details mentioned in Serena’s topic synopsis on the Israel-Palestine Conflict is the notion of the Arab-Palestinian identity. Essentially, despite technically living within the state of Israel, Palestinians have wholly split from the Israeli identity due to the various social and cultural differences between the two groups. This growing divide, compounded by recent rises in Palestinian nationalism and a so-called “national awakening,” fortunes for a one-state solution have collapsed while societal tensions have skyrocketed. The article linked below details how specific, vital