Director-General Jeff Phaneuf spoke on how Model UN will shape the leaders of tomorrow:
Secretary-General Dan Robinson recited a few verses from the poem, "Locksley Hall," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I asked Dan about it after closing ceremonies and he pointed out that President Truman carried around an excerpt of this poem in his wallet. This was a cool note on which to end the conference.
Excerpted below, and the complete poem can be found here.
"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."
Dan then closed his speech with an interesting point: Model UN is not about realism or how to emulate the UN; it is about idealism, and how the nations of the world should work together towards international peace.
More liveblogging material from HMUN (and the Yale MUN Conference) to come, stay tuned.
