The Carolinian [March 25, 2002]

              (I THE CAROLINIAN
Model UN
heads to
national
conference
Elizabeth Fenn
Staff Writer
The UNCG chapter of the
Model United Nations is preparing to
go to New York City for a week and
participate in the National Model UN
Conference on the 26th. After receiv-ing
an award at the Southern
Regional Model United Nations,
their hopes are high for a national
win.
Not bad for a group most of
he campus knows nothing about.
"Model UN is a collegiate
organization that is world wide
where groups like ourselves basical-ly
simulate the UN in conferences
around the world," said Laura
Merrell. junior.
"We are given a country that
is a member of the UN," said
Merrell. "And we split into commit-tees
to do research on issues that are
cunently or have been in front of
those committees from that country
in the actual UN," said Merrell.
The country the UNCG
chapter of Model UN represents at
conferences this year is Cape Verdi, a
small island nation off the West coast
of Africa.
"When we all go next week,
the students will be |at the confer-ence)
as representatives from Cape
Verdi and they will be on the com-mittees
in the UN that Cape Verdi is
on." said Professor Robert Griffiths,
the faculty advisor for the team.
The conference organizers,
well in advance of the conference,
choose the three issues that will be
discussed in each committee at the
conference. The organizers then pre-pare
a Background Topic Guide that
details the history as well as the cur-rent
socio-economic and political rel-evance
of the issue.
The students do intensive
amounts of research on what Cape
Verdi's actual policies and stances
are on the issues that will be dis-cussed
at the conferences. They then
debate their country's position on
that issue with delegates from other
schools representing other countries.
The research is often long
and slow going. "When it's a small
developing country, it's extremely
hard to find resources," said
Bahiyyah Abdu-Wakil. a senior and
president of the team.
"You go and argue on inter-national
affairs from the point of
view of your country who often has
different perspectives on internation-al
affairs, " said Abdu-Wakil. "You
try as much as possible to represent
what the position would be of a
small, developing. African island
nation, because often times it is dif-ferent
from the US or from our own
personal views."
"Model UN is a good way
for students to sharpen their research
and public speaking skills." said
Mary McClellan. vice-president.
"And diplomacy: you have to leam a
lot about diplomacy because in the
committees we try to form resolu-tions
to deal with the issues before
that committee."
Griffiths says that Model
UN's relevance today is, "It helps
students have a better understanding
of other country's perspectives and a
much better acquaintance with glob-al
issues."
This is important to our
society says Griffiths because,
"We're in an age of globalization
where it's import we understand not
only the issues that face all the coun-ties
of the world but we under why
people may have different perspec-tives
on issues."
The National Model UN
Conference in New York is the
To China and back: a student's quest
UNCG student recounts his Feb. trip to Beijing to protest treatment of Falun Gong practitioners
John W. Ayers
News Editor
Drew Parker doesn't look
the part of an activist
He is what many would call
an ordinary UNCG senior; he's
friendly, he's involved in campus
groups, he's looking forward to grad-uating
soon.
But what sets Parker apart
is the remarkable journey he took to
China this February to protest the
Chinese government's treatment of
his fellow Falun Gong practitioners.
He was beaten, denied food
and ridiculed; yet he still counts his
ordeal as a positive experience that
has helped him become a more com-passionate
person.
Falun Gong in an ancient
Chinese practice of 'cultivating truth,
compassion and tolerance'. It is not a
religion but a combination of physi-cal
and mental exercises intended to
foster love and kindness in its fol-lowers,
called practitioners'.
Though Falun Gong (also
known as Falun Dafa) has existed for
hundreds of years, it has recently
gained popularity in China and
across the world. In China, where
roughly 100 million practice Falun
Gong, the government has imple-mented
a program to destroy the
practice through techniques of deten-tions,
torture and murders,
Parker discovered Falun
Gong via a search on the Internet. He
recalled reading the master text of
Falun Gong, the Zhuan Falun, and
feeling a profound impact.
"I read it one time and I
thought. Wow, this is a really pro-found
book." he said.
"Right after my junior year.
I started practicing and I noticed an
immediate difference." said Parker.
"I found myself much more calm and
easygoing- just a much more com-passionate
person."
Parker said he thinks the
Chinese government represses the
70-100 million Chinese Falun Gong
members because the practice offers
a philosophy different from the offi-cial
Communist dogma.
"That's 70 million hearts
and minds touched by something
besides the atheism the Communist
government practices.'' he said.
He said he had several rea-sons
for deciding to go to China, per-haps
the most important being his
desire to end the Chinese govern-ment's
poIicie* "' nurder and torture
towards Falcn Dong ractitioners.
"One [NftaOft] is because
I've gained so much from practicing
that it's hard to believe that people
who really just want to be the best
kind of people are getting murdered
for that in China," he said.
"I think human life is really
precious." said Parker. "I just could-n't
watch any more people get killed
unjustly for doing what they believe-in
something that is good."
But Parker said this wasn't a
rushed decision; rather, he coordinat-ed
his efforts with about 50 others
and planned his trip carefully.
"It wasn't a spur of the
moment thing." he said. "At some
point, I thought. This is really what I
want to do'."
Parker said knowing the
Chinese government would treat
Western Falun Gong practitioners
differently gave him confidence.
"The Western Falun Gong
practitioners are in a unique situa-tion."
he said, adding that he knew
the Westerners would get "roughed
up" but not tortured or killed, like
Continued on page 8
Parker was detained for almost 24 hours without food, water or sleep
Poet Giovanni speaks in Taylor
Civil Rights Activist speaks is NAACP s first annual Women's History Month guest
Elizabeth Fenn
Staff Writer
Continued on page 2
The UNCG chapter of the
NAACP sponsored poet, writer, pro-fessor
and civil rights activist Nikki
Giovanni as their first annual speaker
for Women's History Month in
Taylor Auditorium Thursday.
Giovanni was born in
Know ilk- in 1943. She is a graduate
of Fisk University and cuncntly a
Distinguished Professor at Virginia
Tech. Author of over 20 books, recip-ient
of numerous awards and hon-orary
degrees such as the NAACP
Image Awards, The Langston Hughes
Award, and Honorary Doctorate of
Humanities from WilberForce
University.
"This is something 1 am
really totally excited about so I want
to tell you being I think today is
Thursday and tomorrow I'm going to
Montgomery Alabama to receive the
first Rosa Parks award and I'm so
thrilled she chose me," said
Giovanni.
When Rosa Parks called
Giovanni to tell her about the award.
Giovanni told Mrs. Parks that what-ever
Mrs. Parks wanted, she would
do.
"Because Rosa Parks is one
of the few people that you have to say
yeas to. I can't imagine ever saying
no," said Giovanni. "She could have
asked me to bake stones, it still
would have been the answer."
"The best thing you can do
is to say yes. You train yourself to say
yes first and figure out how to do it
later," said Giovanni.
Giovanni read poems of
hers that had previously been pub-lished
as well as new poems. Before
most of the poems she told stories of
the events and thoughts that shaped
her writing the poems.
The first poem Giovanni
read will be the first part of the new
Smithsonian exhibit on Martin
Luther King Jr.
"I wanted to write a poem
for Martin Luther King because he's
a nice guy, he's a great guy and he
said if he had it to choose, longevity
Giovanni is the author of over 20 books
has its charm. But of course he made
choices that prevented that; but
we're not courageous because it's
easy but because it's the right thing
to do." said Giovanni.
The poem spoke of struggle
and its redemptive powers.
"How much pressure does
the earth put on dirt to create a dia-mond'.'''
she read.
She was also asked recently
to write a poem about Rosa Parks for
a new book.
"I'm thinking about Mrs.
Parks and what point I'm going to
make that's going to be a little dif-ferent
and of course, well maybe not
'of course' to you. I think about who
made Mrs. Parks and I thought of the
Pullman Porters." said Giovanni.
When trains where
America's main form of long dis-tance
transportation, George
Pullman invented the sleeper car
which came to be known as
Pullmans and totally changed the
industry. These cars where staffed by
Black men who where paid $37 a
month, according to Giovanni, to
staff those cars and care for the
needs of the whites riding in them.
It was a job that kept men away from
their families for many months. The
men where also subjected to the reg-ular
demeaning practice of always
being called "George." as in George
Pullman, by the white people they
waited on and served.
The Pullman Porters formed
the first black union and where
instrumental in much of the change
of the Civil Rights movement.
"The Pullman Porters are to
African American history what shep-herds
are to biblical history." said
Giovanni.
She then began to tell the
story of Emit Till, a 14-year-old
Black child from Chicago with a li
mp and a stutter who was sent on a
train one summer, to stay with his
great uncle in Mississippi. She told
the audience a story of how she
imagined the Pullman Porters would
have taken care of this young child
traveling by himself.
"I'm sure they took him and
said. 'Oh son. this is Springfield, you
'don't to get off here, this is Klan
country.'" said Giovanni.
But the time came when he
had to leave the protection of the
Pullman Porters and get off in
Mississippi to go to his great-uncle's.
"If he hadn't gotten off that train, his-tory
would have been different." said
Giovanni.
After coming into his great-uncle's
care. Emit Till said some-thing
to or about a white woman in a
convenience store and her husband
and brother came and dragged him
from his home, beat him. and castrat-ed
him. Then they tied his body to a
heavy object and threw him in the
river.
Two weeks later when his
body surfaced, the sheriff wanted to
quietly bury him and sweep the mat-ter
under the rug, said Giovanni, but
the Pullman Porters asked his moth-er
what she wanted and she said that
she wanted to take him home to
Chicago to bury him.
So they sneaked him
North. "But they didn't stow him
with the luggage." said Giovanni,
"where somebody would have dis-covered
the body and they would
have been killed and buried and that
would be the end of it. They kept
him with their personal effects and
they watched over the boy and cared
for him," said Giovanni.
"Rosa Parks was willing to
put aside her life so that 14-year-old
boy in muddy Mississippi would not
have died in vain," said Giovanni.
"It was Rosa Parks who could not
stand that death and in not being
able to stand it. she sat." said
Giovanni.
"It was a Pullman Porter
who bailed her out and it was a
Pullman Porter who when they had
a rally after she got out. suggested
they get that new preacher." said
Giovanni, referring to Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr..
"So in writing a poem
about Rosa Parks, I thought I should
start with the Pullman Porters," said
Giovanni. "So it's for the Pullman
Porters but it's about Rosa Parks."
Giovanni also talked about her
experiences with surviving lung
cancer and the poems it inspired her
to write as well as her opinions on
love and divorce.
"I want to close on a love
poem because it's getting to be
spring and people fall in love in the
spring." she said. "It's getting to be
warm, so you don't need to be in
love in the spring, you need to be in
love in the winter."
\ <
-- .