The Historic Journey Continues.

Berlin Conference (Day 2)

Showering under the bright sun with soft wind smoothly caressing people’s cheeks, the second day of TransMUN 2019 has soon begun. As the Dais team of 1884 Berlin Conference banged the gavel, the significant historical event also continued to go on.

Without any hesitation, the delegate of Italy firmly raised a moderated caucus discussing the division of the region of Cameroon with German Empire and France. Three powerful countries then reached a consensus and thus shared the resources together so as to empower themselves. Cooperation regarding sharing profits and resources have seemed to be more common up to the present.

The Desire for Gaining Benefits Never Fades Away

Afterward, the delegate of Spain raised an unmoderated caucus and we could see that several blocs be formed at that moment. Proposals with reference to free trade and routes have also been made. To everyone’s excitement, exhausted as the House was, fierce discussions and debates could still be easily observed. As an example, the delegate of France urged other countries not to vote for USA’s proposal for fear that the United States may grow stronger in the late 19th century and thus led the House to confrontations. We could say that delegates’ actions in scrambling Africa were getting much more ambitious and aggressive.

Nonetheless, as we have mentioned before, there is never a trustworthy ally in the Berlin Conference. We could effortlessly find out that no stable alliance relationships exist under the international society back then.

Consequent to a short unmoderated caucus came a motion raised by the delegate of UK discussing Sudan and South Sudan. The UK was deeply convinced that they indeed owned the sovereignty over Sudan and South Sudan and questioned why France challenged such firm fact. Various intense speeches had been delivered under secondary speakers’ list and yet still did not reach any consensus.

Successive Invasions with No Mercy

What followed came a sequence of moderated caucuses and proposals. For instance, the delegate of Belgium aimed at discussing the Congo basin while the delegate of France proposed to confer about Nigeria. On top of that, a moderated caucus proposed by the delegate of Denmark showed her intention of taking over Senegal. The delegate of USA also raised a motion with respect to the independence of Liberia.

What is worth mentioning is that since the motion raised by the U.S had passed, Liberia, a Western African region, had turned out to be the first and sole independent country in Africa as yet. The division of Senegal also aroused uproar among the house, this poor African country then eventually was divided into northern and several southern parts and was taken over by many different countries.

From the reporter’s point of view, these European countries were making great effort to maximize their profits and interfering with each other by exploiting and dividing Africa. We could say that Africa was becoming more and more complicated since so many foreign powers had involved and occupied it.

No Man is ever satisfied

The 1884 Berlin Conference had again continued after an hour of lunch break as well as a sweet nap. The delegate of Belgium never yielded to the pressure and kept on raising moderated caucus conferring about the control over the Congo Basin. We could conclude how active our delegates were by seeing them sending tons of proposals discussing the Congo Basin and its surroundings.

The motion regarding Egypt, the important northern region in Africa, was also raised by the delegate of England. Judging from his speech, we could sense another multilateral cooperation formed by the UK, Italy and the Ottoman Empire since they proposed to divide Egypt. With regard to the substantial strategic yet economic region, the Suez Canal, the delegate of the UK had compromised with the delegate of France to share the profit of such noteworthy region. To the greatest surprise, the House passed the motion and enabled both the UK and France to monopolize the Swiss Canal!

The conference will continue to proceed, and more fascinating information will be provided tomorrow.