Whimsical Ramblings
August 8, 2007
UN Headquarters, NY
10 thoughts from my day at the UN:
1. Walking in, I am again struck (as if by lightning) by the sheer grandeur of the place. Wait no, that was somewhere else. From the stocky, short, and unsightly concrete buildings to the permanently temporary entrance tent, the UN just doesn’t come off as a place of serious international politics.
2. Due to the rainstorms of the previous night, resulting in complete Manhattan subway shutdown, I was forced to wear dirty jeans and a rather unstylish flannel shirt (well it’s stylish to me, and that’s what counts right?) to the UN. As I strolled through the halls, I felt both incredibly cool - walking past little kids as I scanned my security pass and magically opened doors, and incredibly dorky - when high level diplomats in three piece suits walked past.
3. The seminar felt a lot like a college classroom. Every college has a couple of quirky older folks still taking classes, asking disconnected questions, and jotting down notes on a legal pad. Yep, pretty much the same here. Silly questions, an overhead projector nobody could get to work properly, and a general fear of being “that guy” and asking dumb questions.
4. The seminar contained an encouraging number of young people. In a rough estimation, I would say that 25% of the attendees were below the age of 30. A good sign for interested youth activists in participation and policy making.
5. Troika – hilarious word. It refers to representatives from three world regions that are responsible for facilitating a universal periodic review discussion. Sounds more like a bubble gum, German army unit, or that weird area underneath an adam’s apple.
6. I sat next to an elderly woman who had her ear piece turned up way too high. For her, this drowned out both her voice and everyone’s around her, leading the Golden Girls doppelganger to the false conclusion that she needed to speak much louder than she actually did. It wasn’t a problem until she started making sighs and groaning noises - at double the normal volume.
7. Speaking of ear pieces, can’t the UN afford cooler looking ear pieces like you see in the movies? These looked like big white boxes of tic tacs that you awkwardly shoved over your entire lobe.
8. I had the fortune to witness one of my all time favorites: the three-part question. At approximately 1:45 and 14 seconds, a gentleman in front of me unleashed this beauty: the first was about the “responsibility to protect” as a contentious topic, followed by a death penalty inquiry, finished off with a question on the technical ordering of the delegate selection procedure. The whole affair took around 4 minutes, and when the gentleman was finished the discussion leader had a stunned look on his face while I happily said to myself, “yesssssss!!!”
9. The seminar was held in Conference Room 5, right behind the dining café area, so you know it was of the utmost importance to the delegates. Nothing spells success for a meeting like holding it in an obscure location behind the UN’s most distractingly delicious 100 square feet.
10. Everyone is way too polite and eager to be gracious diplomats and say thanks. This is an informal seminar for crying out loud. Someone will waste time with a redundant or unrelated question, and it is always met with, “thank you for your questions and consideration.” It seemed far more appropriate for the discussion leader to say, “you should be saying thank you to me for spending my personal time giving you a Q & A on information you could look up online.” Of course, instead of the inevitable opening line of, “Mr. So and So, thank you for taking the time to consult with us…”, that response would probably lead to the elderly people in the room scratching their heads over where exactly “online” was.
If Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer started an NGO, all crime worldwide would halt immediately.
Did I just make a really bad Chuck Norris joke, that’s usually not my style. The Chuck Norris part I mean.
Erik Preston
