Closing Ceremony I: Funny anecdotes

Any international conference would doubtless be incomplete without a grand closing ceremony. RiMUN 2010’s closing ceremony took place in the Aula, the Radboud University’s official graduation hall. The ceremony would give the chairs a chance to discuss the ups, downs, bilaterals and undoubtedly spectacular resolutions of their committee.

Fate intervened, however. Even before the ceremony could be opened orderly, Benito Mussolini, Italy’s infamous wartime leader, staged a coup d’état and proclaimed himself the First Emperor of the Italian Empire. Although Mussolini and his fascisti quickly established order and hierarchy in the ceremony, however, history once again took another turn. Under the passionate shouting of ‘vive la revolution!’ an as of yet unknown French rebel took matters into her own hands and stabbed il duce in the heart. With this fatal blow, the Italian empire also crumbled to dust. As one would expect from an international conference such as RiMUN, however, order was quickly restored and back in the hands of the United Netherlands troika.

Once matters could proceed again, the chairs of the several committees were called onto the stage to speak their version of history. The English and German crisis cabinets’ chairs, though amicably standing side to side, quickly found themselves back in their old hostility, accusing the other of conspiracy, false ideology and weakness. The UN Security Council negotiated the addition of several new members to the body – though stripped of any veto powers. Remarkably, however, an attentive delegate pointed China to the fact that they had written their country’s name as the ‘Republic of China’ as opposed to the ‘People’s Republic of China’. Thus, from now on we can expect Taiwan to make a surprise appearance in the Council. As China conceded, nonetheless, ‘we don’t care about a seat, as long as India and Japan don’t have veto powers’. The DISEC chairs apparently felt themselves too limited by the existing system of awards. Therefore, they introduced several new informal awards. ‘Best-dressed delegate’, ‘delegate who would look best in a bikini’, and the double award ‘couple who most likely have continued their heated debate in the bedroom’ stood out as novelties in MUN. From next year on, this writer therefore expects that bikinis also be recognized as ‘formal attire’.