The following reflection is from Teresa Siniak, a recent Pace University graduate who participated in the POL297L Global Politics of Disarmament and Arms Control class in Fall 2024. Students had the opportunity to engage in civic engagement assignments with disarmament advocacy efforts in the context of the UN General Assembly First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) meetings in New York City.
I have always found the inner workings of governmental and international agendas to be an enigma. I was never taught about American diplomacy or seen such a job description. The decisions of the United Nations General Assembly rarely crossed my news feed let alone my sightline. And what negotiations and conversations convened within the gated fence of the United Nations headquarters were found only in the depths of my imagination.
Dr. Bolton’s class was like a step through the looking glass, from the moment it began. Three, eight-hour days briskly blew by as we all tried to ground ourselves within the experience each morning, simultaneously trying to daydream our lives as if we were the professionals we saw around us. Within a few hours, the facade of the petrifying iron fortress that is the UNHQ began to fall as we traversed its hallowed halls to find little moments of tranquility within the sea of stress.
Around every corner and up every Secretariat floor were kind delegates, NGO colleagues, and a certain UN official slyly slipping off her uncomfortable shoes under the table – adding some comfortability to a tense meeting.
Yet, behind the closed doors that were so kindly opened to us, reality was hidden.
Conversations that had appeared so civil were suddenly engaging in back-and-forth bickering, NGO and states alike were revealing the statistics behind death and destruction worldwide, fears being voiced on the next steps to many worldwide anomalies, nuclear war, lethal automated killing, or withdrawals from treaties signed decades prior. These figures we were so impressed by, as they walked past in their blue or black suits, were suddenly human, no longer god-like individuals advocating their side but rather everyday individuals trying to be heard.
I have always been intrigued by work in government, an interest not well portrayed by my communications degree. It’s also an interest that came with some nerves regarding the intricacies of a national political system that I wasn’t party to for the first 18 years of my life. Yet, throughout my time at the United Nations, guided by Dr. Bolton, I have found a way to root this work that has fascinated me for so long, in collaboration with the international governmental systems I’ve grown up watching. Throughout our time speaking with leaders and diplomats, it dawned on me, that the communication I spent years learning about is what drives the conversations at the UNHQ table. And it has inspired me to take my own turn at the wheel.
Moving forward, work in nuclear advocacy excites me. I look forward to the opportunities I have been exposed to in this joy of a class, and I can’t wait till the day I return. On the final day of our UN immersion, I sent myself a postcard- to push myself, advocate for myself, and get back to UNHQ as soon as possible.