The Frame of Our Destiny, and The Magic Circle Within
Written by Luukas Pitkänen
PROLOGUE
Describing the last chapter of a long series never does justice to the narrative as a whole, as spectacle without setup is like gravity without an astronomical body to produce it. Perhaps one day I’ll get the honor of filling you in on the rest of our journeys, but this trip down memory lane is reserved for the Paris Conference; our last shared steps as VUBMUN’s 2025-2026 Diplomacy Team.
DAY 1
As our metro trudges forward, I feel the air between us changing nature by the second. One moment it is too quiet, then loud, then quiet once more. Can Balli plays around with his tie which I seem to have made slightly too tight at our hotel. I make a mental note regarding diplomacy’s superiority to assassination by neckwear.
We arrive at the conference venue: the headquarters of The International Union of Railways, located right next to The Eiffel Tower. As I gaze at the landmark I feel like I’ve been dipped into a French adaptation of Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. No way the end is already near, especially with such an unreal setting surrounding us.
There are lots of expectations tied to this final demonstration of our MUN society’s superiority. Perhaps too many expectations. We will be discussing maritime trade within a simulated ECOSOC committee, an organ none of us have yet learned to play. An additional challenge is that we are all being pitted against each other for the first time since our first ever conference, meaning it’s highly unlikely everyone will emerge as a winner.
I arrive in the conference hall about 10 minutes early, but to my Nordic horror most delegations are already seated, and even worse, the seating order is pre-assigned. I nod at the committee chair and sit down on one of his namesakes at the end of the row, picking up the placard with my assigned state’s name on it: Côte d’Ivoire, The Ivory Coast. As I look around it suddenly dawns on me that the seats directly in front and to the right of me are reserved for fellow VUBMUN members, friends of mine. They’ll be snubbing me of the most underappreciated contributor to smooth MUN diplomacy: being neighbors with people you don’t know from before. I sigh as Erla and Dorsa, representing Djibouti and Cabo Verde respectively, take their seats. I must not complain: my colleagues in the back row have it way worse. Can (Sweden), Stan (South Africa), André (Qatar), Victor (Pakistan) and Arslan (Sri Lanka), all young men of non-insignificant frames, are tucked in together at the very end of the room, far from the chair’s eye, and further from dignity.
After a brief round of introductions, we grab our lanyards from the front and open the floor. The back row is keen to prove its worth: Qatar keeps passionately pushing an agenda I frankly do not understand, Pakistan preaches about secure sea routes, equitable governance and adaptive resilience. I smile to myself, wondering if these buzzwords have sufficient content behind them. Mine don’t. Arslan’s Sri Lanka keeps mediating, being a voice of reason. I remember how before the conference he expressed dismay over having to compete with people he has trained so long with, and how I’d been skeptical that this proud MUN expert on his 9th year of service, who even curb stomped my delegation when I was but a rookie during last year’s MockMUN in Liège, has suddenly grown patient and cooperative. Others agree: “He’s learned to build bridges instead of blowing them up,” Victor quips later. Commendable character development. Big if it’s true.
During the next unmoderated caucus, I escape the clutches of Djibouti and Cabo Verde and swim across the delegations to China, with whom I have been exchanging meaningful looks and notes through the opening procedures and speeches. I talk her ears off about Chinese investments in Africa and how they should consider major contributions to the Ivorian ports of Abidjan and San Pedro. They agree, we shake hands, I move away suspicious. I can’t help but recall our last conference in London, where I represented Russia and played a toothless paper tiger throughout the whole thing to sneakily get my way. Most delegates that are assigned great powers act very proud and even brazen, but every now and then someone takes a different route: I feel like China is up to something, I just can’t prove it. I take my paranoia out on Saudi Arabia, to whom I promise priority access to the ports in exchange for their investment. I do not plan for this to end up in any of my official proposals, and pray their delegation forgets about this detail of access within the next hectic hours. My prayers are answered. By the end of the day, I have negotiated unconditional port financing and other forms of development support from China, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea, with Japan giving me a promising “maybe”. This is what I wanted, this is what I got: it seems as though I’m getting everything despite giving nothing in return.
DAY 2
The second day begins with a significant shift in power relations, as seating allocations are slightly changed due to some missing delegations. All the back row VUBMUN delegates except for those of South Africa and Sweden manage to move to the front, going from invisible to all the chair can see. I keep fixating on my lanyard, which proudly displays an alternative spelling of my state’s name: Cã Te Di’Ivoire. I think back to VVNMUN in Brussels, about how the already niche Guyana’s placard saying “Guayana” hadn’t helped me and my co-delegate much with building up name recognition. Ah, I’m overthinking. Appearances matter, but this is a measly setback in the grand scheme of things. My delegation’s name is called, and I get up to sell my framework.
“To create is to live twice,” I quote, finishing my speech proud yet slightly embarrassed, before sitting back down. I try to sell everyone on a major West-African program that includes modernization of major ports, educational reforms as well as anti-piracy operations. It is a big pitch, one which I am not fully prepared for even despite my preparations.
I perk up to listen to Lizzy (Costa Rica), admiring her upright posture and rigid yet warm smile. I want to think we are in the same boat, but there is no way of confirming or denying this. Outside the committee we may be friends, but here we are cordial colleagues at best. Man, I wonder if she was this put together before her time in the military. I hope I’ll be like that one day. I cross the row to distract some of her neighbors: France and Finland. With the former, playing the humble former colony (emulating Côte d’Ivoire’s first president Félix Houphouët-Boigny) works until I fumble my pitch for a joint anti-piracy force by acknowledging Côte d’Ivoire very recently asked French troops to leave the country. I draw a false equivalence; it now seems as though my delegation is asking for a European military intervention of some kind. Before I can rush over to counter this narrative among people who were not there to hear the full pitch, the Finnish delegation stops me. She’s heard I am originally from Finland and is curious as to if I have any pointers regarding how to accurately represent the country. Once again, I stand there paralyzed, and recall the Brussels conference, which had coincided with Finland’s Independence Day. There, I’d tipped the Finnish delegation off right as their spot on the general speakers’ list was coming up, granting them a potentially memorable moment yet gaining little in return. I keep staring at her. For a moment, I see the waves of Lake Saimaa in her eyes and feel myself drowning at the thought of someone fishing for trivia about my beloved country. I want to tell her everything there is to know. There are too many things I want to say…luckily someone distracts me long enough for the spell to break. I vow to talk to her later and wave goodbye, for now. The unmoderated caucus nears its end; I’m in a hurry go sell my anti-piracy operation to Italy. Japan, formerly my most promising potential partner, has given the committee an Irish goodbye, so I need to focus on delegations I have not yet worked with.
Blocs consolidate. In the center of the room, Djibouti, Costa Rica, and myself have emerged as opinion leaders. In the front, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Qatar have assumed leading positions. It’s said South Africa and Sweden are quietly dominating the back row, but I remain skeptical. “Out of sight out of mind,” I foolishly think to myself.
After a tiring episode of the general speakers’ list our lunch break begins. The length of this recreational bit only seems to add to the difficulty of the conference. Since the beginning of my MUN journey, I’ve found it fascinating to observe these simulated settings through historian Johan Huizinga’s concept of “magic circles”, spaces in which suspension of disbelief rules and a simulated setting with its own set of laws and dynamics takes over what we usually accept as reality. Simulations like these are obviously a powerful educational tool for learning politics and rhetoric, but also an interesting social practice in themselves. As I walk to a poke bowl place with some of my fellow delegates, I experience a mental process almost comparable to motion sickness: I must remind myself I’m now with friends, not delegations. All committee work is officially on pause during the break. Still, I know deep down that whatever happens outside of committee cannot fully disappear as we enter the circle again. These next hours better not rock the boat…
A consultation of the whole takes place, leaving a lot to be desired. My neighbor makes a strategic mistake in picking someone she’s friends with outside the committee as the speaker to follow her, the magic circle is breached. The tactical mistake repeats as the speakers’ list is dominated by the Brussels team. Then again, very few of the other delegates seem to want to speak. I look back at the Tanzanian delegation, headed by my colleague Abdulla, suffering from excessive sun exposure next to the window. The man’s been a quiet killer today, embedding his clauses in nearly every working paper without drawing too much attention to himself. I nod to him affirmingly, knowing he’ll pull through. This guy knows how to lead from behind.
Working papers are submitted with the Ivorian one being the first to get accepted. I can’t deny my pride; this marks the first time I’ve gotten such a head start. It’s not a big deal: the paper is immediately followed by numerous others. Regardless, I let myself enjoy the brief rush of success. Eventually the chair declares he’s putting a cap on the number of papers. Sweden and South Africa’s clauses are left behind, my pride whispers it’s too late for them to pull through and I dismiss them once more, not yet knowing this to be a costly blunder.
The papers start being merged. I agree to carry Ivorian clauses over to the Costa Rican paper, as its formatting looks far better than mine. As a show of good faith, I ask the delegation to already promise to support my run for sponsor once we have a resolution ready to go. With a secured sponsor seat, I let Costa Rica head another merger with my committee neighbor Djibouti. This immediately backfires, as Djibouti is not fond of the wording of my clauses. I’m soon surrounded by delegations, being bombarded with criticisms too fast to even focus on one. My mind wanders to the previous day, when I’d jokingly observed to my neighbor that whenever we do one of these simulations and it comes time to work together her shadow persona takes over to tear me apart. She’d deflected the accusation, but my statement proves to be true. She knows how to play: holding the pen with silk gloves would be a sign of weakness. I just wish Costa Rica was there to receive her share of the heat. Ah, I must not think like that. Like our advisors always say: no excuses. I manage to fend the attacks off by rewording each clause enough times. My ideas stay put, but a lot of time goes down the drain.
At the hotel, we receive critique from our faculty advisors. Though every bloc is being led by one of our own, the accusations are plentiful: improper chumminess, passiveness, taking up too much space. The delegate reactions are varied, but we shut our mouths and listen. The advisors have been with us for months; their perspective goes beyond this one conference. Indeed, they close off by reminding us this harshness is only a consequence of our power. They must nitpick, or even the small successes may go to our heads. I admit to myself there is truth to this, though I also cannot help but snicker. Harshness may be a consequence of success, but it’s also in part the cause: this conference was preceded by months of training six hours per week, with frequent homework, and immense comfort zone growing pains. This is only as difficult as it has been since our first weeks. I return to my room to edit an Instagram promo for the association. I’ve been doing this daily during this trip as part of my communications internship for the organization. Sometimes it feels like this is my entire life now. I smile to myself: I love it.
I end the night by sitting down and going over the last few months with my friend Yana, a fellow communications intern and my first ever MUN co-delegate. She’s a prime example of how friendships are not allowed to define dynamics at a conference: I’ve been having to sideline her Kenyan delegation on both days, since the climate agenda pushed by her doesn’t fit in my already overly ambitious of a paper. The magic nausea returns for a bit, but I push it down. I’m lucky to have friends that I can share so many experiences with.
DAY 3
It’s André’s birthday, or as I cheekily call it, Qatari Independence Day. Committee session kicks off with a celebratory song, but as the birthday boy returns to his seat the joyful mood quickly turns competitive. As the central blocs merged on the second day, so did the entire front row with Sweden and South Africa. There are now two mega blocs, or so I initially think. In reality, Sweden and South Africa have managed to snatch many of the former allies of our bloc, meaning we’re now the definite underdogs. Looking at their paper, it’s clear this has come at a cost: it’s a total goulash of resolutions. There are no overarching themes or topics, or any signs of compromise. Each party is there because that’s the bloc where they may submit their ideas undiluted. I begin to regret being scared off by France and Finland and the Machiavellianism I engaged in with Saudi Arabia. Even with the lost signatories, I keep the port financing plans mentioned earlier, only deleting mentions of South Africa’s ports I initially added to lure him over. It’s unlikely this maneuver will work as now the only state the port clause explicitly serves is my own. Nevertheless, the reward is high enough for me to accept the risk.
Sweden reaches out to me. They noticed yesterday’s painful negotiations with Djibouti and now serenade me with promises of an uncompromised Ivorian chapter in the big paper. I try to entertain the idea, but deep down know I’m in too deep. I attempt to play both sides, submitting my ideas to them and consistently checking in on their progress without officially leaving my bloc. Finally, though, I receive an ultimatum.
“Resign as sponsor and publicly endorse us or you have no voice here,” South Africa demands. Ach. I’m happy to give up the sponsorship, I’m beginning to think I should’ve stayed out of it to begin with. I had enough power as it was, a prominent position has only drawn unwanted attention. As expected, Tanzania is still managing to play both sides because their delegation is cooperative without being in the spotlight. Then again, the front row dominates whilst sitting closest to the chair and having nowhere to look but toward everyone. They understood the mechanics of our space when moving from back to front whereas I got too comfortable in the middle. Now I must catch up.
I give a speech publicly resigning as sponsor right before the sponsorships are officially decided on. My last act as a legitimized leader is yielding the spot to the Nigerian delegation, one of the players that grilled my resolutions the day before. She’s a first-time delegate, but very competent and cooperative. Perhaps more so than myself. I really want to see her win.
Unlike us, the other bloc democratically votes on sponsors, further highlighting our different approaches. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and South Africa come out on top and submit their resolution. For us, Djibouti and Costa Rica remain as leaders. I’m happy I resigned as sponsor: if I hadn’t, every leader would be of VUBMUN. Though it would in many ways demonstrate our prowess to the chair, it’s not necessarily exclusively a good look. Suspicions of nepotism can at their worst kill entire papers and lose people awards.
I approach Sweden asking if any of my parts ended up in their resolution but get waved away. The donated sponsorship seems to matter very little in their eyes. The question of allegiance is settled: they know what kind of man I’ve been. I have not committed myself to jumping ship and must now suffer the consequences.
It’s time to present the resolutions. The opposing bloc does reasonably well, though they keep rather unconvincingly arguing that the only reason many of their clauses are underdeveloped is because of the lack of time. I call them out: billions are to be spent on what they propose, but there are no comprehensive guidelines or even suggestions as to who is paying and for what. My criticisms are ignored. By the time it is my bloc’s time to present, the chair seems to be tired of the rules of procedure: our sponsors get to pick whose questions they answer, unlike the opposing bloc. This is an obvious advantage, though an unfair one. Still feeling as though I’ve been sidelined a bit, I don’t give them an easy time: I question their climate clauses which seem to demand the Global South to do as much lifting as states far more affluent and polluting. This won’t do! But alas, it does.
Overall, their presentation trumps the previous one, but the tides don’t seem to turn. Most people have made up their minds. We move to propose amendments. I’ve got plenty: throughout both presentations, I’ve kept busy, writing spiky critiques on the opposing bloc’s document. In my view, about half of it is simply unusable, and they would’ve been wise to compromise and create fewer clauses of a higher quality. Then again, maybe our bloc’s failure was indeed brought on by over-the-top attention to detail. Perhaps the incident which almost made me myself switch sides was only the last debate of many, and the others leaving was due to their ambitions being stifled with us. There is no time to lament. I open my laptop to submit all amendments, but after only getting one in, I’m suddenly logged out of the document. Sri Lanka is the perpetrator. I elbow myself to him through the surrounding bloc and demand to know what’s going on. I’m told I cannot submit amendments since I did not agree to back their resolution. I’m dumbfounded: did I really miss a detail this big when getting acquainted with the rules of procedure? It’s possible, but very unlikely…
As I sit down the time to submit amendments ends and we begin reviewing them. I can’t stop thinking about my unsubmitted proposals. My knee bounces up and down from as my anxiety and frustration grows stronger. Is this how my final conference ends? After ten or so minutes of intense internal debate, I reach a conclusion: there is no way what he said is true. It wouldn’t make sense that the only document you can propose changes to is your own: either our most experienced delegate is wrong, or we’ve finally come to the part where he curb stomps me. This is not in order. I go for a Hail Mary, writing a desperate letter to the chair about what just happened. Our bloc seems to be done for, and I also suspect the opposing one has already internally agreed upon what they’re willing to change anyway. I do not have the numbers, but I refuse to fall by foul play, intentional or not. If this is my last chance to speak, I’ll make it good.
By the grace of the chair I’m granted five minutes to submit all my amendments. By the time I’m done, all other ones on that document have been discussed and voted on: I end up giving five back-to-back speeches, each more passionate and unwavering than the last. Time and time again I’m outvoted, which only adds fuel to my nearly empty tank. As the final vote takes place, I nod and sit back down as the opposing bloc’s resolution passes with thunderous applause. For a moment it appears we have lost. But then something surprising happens.
With mere minutes left on the clock, our resolution passes as well, despite our former opponents having more than enough people to outvote it to oblivion. Even my sneaky funding resolution isn’t amended, meaning I get everything I’ve lobbied for over these days. It’s a rare show of blind goodwill, with basically everyone who worked on either paper getting what they want. I smile as the simulation unravels around me. Way to remind us this isn’t the real UN.
Committee closes; I move to the side to perform a celebratory dance with Dorsa, as our tradition demands. We hug friends, shake hands, and sign placards. At the closing ceremony, some young delegates that’d represented Belgium in other committees win awards. We cheer them on like we do our own. Though our delegation is mostly an international bunch, VUBMUN is after all Belgium’s oldest MUN society and our pride over continuing its legacy is undying.
We fulfill the high expectations set for us: within our committee, every major award ends up going to Brussels: Lizzy (Costa Rica) is crowned Outstanding Delegate, André (Qatar) Distinguished Delegate, Honorable Mentions go to Dorsa (Cabo Verde) and Arslan (Sri Lanka). VUBMUN as a collective earns an Outstanding Delegation Award. Our magnum opus comes to a close.
EPILOGUE
I never really found a hobby I liked, despite giving all kinds of popular pastimes a shot. Group practices proved especially challenging: growing up in a small town I had little choice as to who to spend time with anyway. I did not desire more situations where I was forced to see the same people week to week. I didn’t commit to anything for years. Though I participated in extracurricular activities as a student, I was often mostly around as a jack of all trades, never as someone indispensable. My intellectual development as well as my health were tied to what I did in my free time, which was not much. In fact, how I spent my time was often very counterproductive. Depression dens were my home, religion and nation.
I was not initially so passionate about Model United Nations. I applied on a total whim purely because someone I used to know was also trying to get into it at around the same time. She didn’t even end up getting in herself, and by the time my interview rolled around I had somehow already forgotten about the whole thing. By some miracle, I still made it through.
This journey’s been truly formative for all of us. Nothing exemplifies it quite like our final afternoon in Paris. Once the conference was over, we strayed from our usual rigorous feedback routine and opted not to review committee matters immediately. Instead, we traversed to our hotel’s lobby, and each gave a freeform speech on our individual thoughts and feelings on all that we’ve gone through as a team throughout the entire year. From what I remember, a third of the people there were already in tears by the second speaker.
“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours,” is a quote (attributed to former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld) I’m quite fond of. VUBMUN has been an exceptionally all-encompassing part of our lives these past months. On one hand the grueling amount of time and work we’ve had to share between us every week has been extremely overwhelming: we as an unchanging collective have formed the frame of destiny. On the other hand, all that effort has cultivated in us such a deep appreciation and understanding of each other that we’ve ended up spending a lot of voluntary time together and truly bonding beyond our shared hobby, choosing to fill the frame with a community that exceeds the label of student organization. Some of the most meaningful ties of my life have formed here, and I do not make that statement lightly.
I kind of wish I’d been able to cry on that final day. I’m unsure if I possess the vocabulary or emotional intelligence to relay how deeply I care for this crowd otherwise. Recalling and noting down these events has almost felt compensatory, as if I’m performing a transmutation and turning tears into ink. It doesn’t help that there’s always more to analyze and reminisce about: I didn’t even get to talk about our beloved friend and colleague Merylin (arguably our best public speaker) who had to miss out on Paris due to a scheduling conflict, our brilliant faculty advisors Lara, Nena, Zoélie and Zampia, or any of the other trainers and mentors that’ve left their marks on us over the last few months. Overall, I only explicitly praised or criticized delegates when it served the narrowed unreliable personal narrative through which I described the events of this specific committee. Truthfully, I could write an entire profile on each of my colleagues, each one of them certainly deserves as much. They’re all brilliant and inspiring people that I’m confident will be beyond successful in whatever field they choose for themselves.
Indeed: defining the shadow by its caster, maybe the true magic circle was, ahem, the friends we made along the way.
Author’s Profile: Luukas Pitkänen
Luukas “Luke” Pitkänen, 20, is a member of VUBMUN’s main delegation for academic year 2025-2026.
Currently in his second year of a BSc of Social Sciences, he is known for his creativity, and a passion for writing. In his free time he enjoys spending his time on films, literature, and running
This article has been created in collaboration with the Communications Interns: Yana Diarra and Erla Byre-Hjorthol.