Approaching the end of the conference

Berlin Conference (Day 3)

Woke up with exhaustion and excitement, we couldn’t help blaming how fast the time passed and embraced the last day of Transmun 2019. Still, the delegates in BC remained vibrant and ambitious, never stopped plotting for the remaining parts of Africa.

The delegate of the UK raised a moderated caucus discussing the whole western Africa, the last remaining part after two days of scramble, right after the roll call. The delegate also introduced a proposal with regard to the division of the region and the cooperation with Spain, Netherland, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, and Belgium. We could firmly believe that such huge multilateral collaboration must have been through numerous discussions and negotiations in order to meet each nation’s needs. The delegate of the UK stated: “As long as nation’s profit can be guaranteed, everything is possible.”

An unmoderated caucus was also raised and heated discussions can be easily observed again. The most interesting part was that the House even started to confer natural resources such as animals. However, since delegates had failed to reach consensus about dividing western Africa during such long lobbying, the delegate of Belgium raised another motion to finalize new proposals which assembled the majority of delegates in the House. Sadly, judging from each nations’ speeches, it seemed that Belgium’s plan still confronted with England’s intention and came to another fierce debate.

With an eye to solving the dispute between the UK and Belgium, the delegate of France raised another proposal to satisfy the House’s requirements. The complex division of Western Africa had been schemed and ushered in another heated debate. As far as the reporter was concerned, it was by no means easy for all countries to meet their own interests.

Time and pressure never quenched delegates’ ambition in scrambling Africa aggressively. What followed was an unmoderated caucus raised by the delegate of Belgium which still discussed the matter of western Africa. Described by the delegate of the German Empire, “Negotiation takes more time than we ever expected.” Noticing some mistakes, the Dais team of BC also strongly urged the House to fully take heed of the geographic conditions in Africa. Next, another motion was then raised by the delegate of Denmark to further discuss the proposal of Western Africa. It appeared that long discussions had eventually come to some conclusions.

Basically, in this time of the Berlin Conference, we could comprehend that delegates had all engrossed themselves in scrambling for profit and strengthening their nations. The African continent was poorly invaded and divided into a large number of pieces. For example, the Congo Basin was divided into 5 parts; the eastern part of the region was taken over by the UK while the lower part was controlled by Austria-Hungary; the Ottoman Empire and Denmark owned 1/3 of the natural resources while Spain owned profit of taxes such as River and Soyo. As for Morocco, the Ottoman Empire took over the northern part while Spain and Belgium occupied the eastern coastline of it. On the other hand, France would possess the western part and the inland.

The Berlin Conference has finally come to an end. If we want to know how and why our world becomes the way it is today, we have to look into the history for answers. And we believe that the 1884 Berlin conference would remain its significance and influence on the modern world.