Writen by Terry Martin

A view from the Secretariat of the UN

As the permanent officials have always known, the title of our organisation is an optimistic fiction, Disunited Nations is a much better name, and this game showed that, despite the valiant efforts of some of the lesser powers to actually make teams work together! But for the major powers, self interest always took precedence over the interests of humankind as a whole.

Where there was (rare) unity it was noticeable that success could be achieved e.g. in refugee relief and medical research – but such unity only occurred if the major powers saw it in their own interests.

In a thoroughly enjoyable game running the UN, there were some highlights for me. Not very PC these days but I enjoyed some of the national stereotyping , the polite British, the epicurean (and often late) French and the increasingly irascible Americans with their attitude of ’enough talking, let’s kill someone’- which of course they did! The visual highlight for me was the artfully dishevelled appearance of the post apocalyptic Japanese delegate. How tragic when a nuclear disaster leaves one’s make-up smoke disturbed, and one’s hair out of place! 😀

I thought everyone who attended and chaired UN sessions really did do an admirable job , and seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was amazed that so many were new to megagaming, but immediately understood the concepts. Well done to you all.

But for me the highlight was, and the ”Economy with Truth” (google it if you don’t get the reference) Award went to the Russian Ambassador to the UN. I think his only honest statement during the entire game was when he was told that an agent had been captured. He said ”I know nothing about that” which was true, although I am not sure how many other members of the Security Council noticed that he denied knowledge of the agaent’s capture, not of the agent! Apart from that one slip pf honesty, he took the definition of dilpomacy as ”lying for your country” to sublime new levels. I strongly suspect that he was even lying in ther aftergame debief when he claimed not to have amassed any personal fortune!

The moment i will treasure most was the inevitable explosion into confrontation between the Russian and US ambassadors, which was so realistic that it brought back to me memories from my much younger days of Kruschev banging his shoe on the desk in the UN in 1960 at the height of the Cold War. (Before the time of most of you I realise, but hey it’s on YouTube if you want to see)

All in all, a massively enjoyable day, Congratulations and thanks to GameMakers Malmo for all their efforts in putting the game on; it was a pleasure for me personally to see how they have grown so well into taking on Control roles. And of course, congratulations to all the participants. For me a personal gain was contact with some gamers based in the Stockholm region, contacts which I hope to pursue – and as stated elsewhere, I feel encouraged to put on Divided Land in Stockholm in early 2018. About that, any queries, expressions of interest etc. do get in touch, either personally or by use of this site (thanks Thomas) until we get our own set up.

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