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OPOKA Simon
@OPOKASimon
Multidisciplinary M&E and AAP Accountability specialist with academic background in agriculture, public policy, politics,and youth development Invisible. Dare!
Kampala, Uganda
Joined July 2011
911 Following
796 Followers
4.2K Posts
Succession power battles
Abuse of state institutions for political competition is never forgotten.
State power abused eventually corrects itself. Such heavyhanded crude elimination of competition verily often repays at high cost of many victims.
Jeff Bezos asked a room to imagine going back a hundred years.
When almost everyone was a farmer.
And telling those farmers that in 2018 there’d be a job called “massage therapist.”
Bezos: “They would not have believed you.”
Then a friend took it further.
Bezos: “Forget massage therapist, there are dog psychiatrists.”
He looked it up.
Bezos: “Sure enough, you can easily hire a psychiatrist for your dog.”
The room laughed.
The point under the laughter wasn’t funny at all.
Every time a major technology shift hits, we do the exact same thing.
We count the jobs it will destroy.
We never count the ones it will create.
Because we can’t.
They don’t have names yet.
The fear is always specific.
AI will replace accountants. AI will replace radiologists. AI will replace drivers.
The fear has job titles and timelines and projections.
The opportunity has none of those things.
Because you can’t name what doesn’t exist yet.
A farmer in 1920 could understand losing his job to a tractor.
He could not understand gaining a career as a social media strategist.
Not because he lacked intelligence.
Because the entire chain of inventions between his world and that job hadn’t been built yet.
Radio. Television. The internet. Smartphones. Social platforms. Creator economies.
Every single link in that chain had to exist before “social media strategist” could even be a sentence.
That’s where we are with AI right now.
Everyone is staring at the tractor.
Nobody can see the thing seven inventions away that doesn’t have a name yet.
The fear is loud because it fits inside language we already have.
The opportunity is silent because it doesn’t.
Every technological revolution in history created more jobs than it destroyed.
Every single one.
Not because anyone planned it.
Because human needs expand faster than machines can fill them.
We didn’t need massage therapists when we were breaking our backs on farms.
We needed them after machines freed our backs and stress replaced labor.
The demand didn’t disappear.
It migrated somewhere no one was looking.
That is exactly what’s happening right now.
The jobs AI creates won’t make sense to us yet.
They’ll sound as absurd as “dog psychiatrist” would’ve sounded to a farmer in 1920.
Until someone is running a $200 hourly practice with a six-month waitlist.
The entire conversation right now is about what we’re about to lose.
Nobody is talking about what we’re about to gain.
Because the gains don’t have vocabulary yet.
A hundred years from now, someone will stand on a stage and describe the jobs we couldn’t imagine today.
And the audience will laugh.
The same way we just did.
@rwenzori_ Dr. Dan is a good person
@ihtesham2005 The replies tell that highly gifted young people often face resentment and obstruction because of their talent. It suggests that instead of being supported, many young “geniuses” are undermined through envy, hostility, or subtle sabotage. The Termites were just not well protected
Who to follow
NUMEC
@NUMEC_Media
Northern Uganda Media Club is a media and communications organisation based in Gulu City, northern Uganda.
Otto Labeja
@dlabeja
Co-Founder and Director, Las’ Cafe Gulu
Yvette Nyombayire Rugasaguhunga
@NyombayireYR
A proud mother & ❤ being, in a pursuit of peace, equal rights and opportunities for all🎾
Wang oo importance in life
The only tribe on earth that doesn’t experience depression does something that modern parents forbid their children to do before going to sleep.
In 2018, anthropologists from the University of Helsinki lived for six months with the Kaluli tribe in Papua New Guinea.
What surprised the researchers most was what happened after sunset.
> Every evening before sleep, Kaluli children gathered around the fire and spoke out loud about frightening or painful experiences ->falls, losses, even nightmares.
The parents didn’t interrupt them.
They didn’t try to comfort them.
They simply listened, until the child’s breathing slowed.
The Kaluli call this “night clearing” releasing fears before sleep so the nervous system can reset.
> Western psychology confirms this.
Speaking fears out loud calms the nervous system.
Suppressing them what many are taught with “don’t think about bad things before bed” keeps the stress cycle active and forces the body to process fear throughout the night.
> The Kaluli say:
“The body sleeps when the story ends.”
This practice teaches children to face their emotions instead of hiding from them
the opposite of modern bedtime silence.
• Try it tonight.
Say your worst thoughts of the day out loud even if you’re alone in the room.
Then breathe until your pulse slows.
You will feel immediate relief.
The mind stops fearing the darkness once it has been named.
April Fool's Day 2026 or hubris...
Be courteous in everything humanly possible
Invincibility clouds judgement
I don’t fight dogs. I fight their owners. Full stop.
Ben hur kind of things
He fired the only person who could make his coffee right 😅
@Arrogance_0024 A conquered people writing their way back into existence.
My counsel plainly is: 'Concentrate upon Uganda. Nowhere else will the results be more brilliant, more substantial, or more rapidly realised."
(WINSTON CHURCHILL - 1904).
Prospector gold guide
شوفو كيف تكون عروق المرو التي تحمل الذهب في المناطق الجبلية اذا عندك في منطقتك عروق مرو مثل هذا تكون طويلة وممتدة يتراوح طول العرق من 15 متر الى 30متر اشتغل وانت في رأسي
احفر مترين وخذ عينة من كل عرق وافحصها وانت با تشوف الذي يكون حامل لنسبة جيده تستحق العمل وأشتغل عليه،، ✋
#تنقيب
#زراعة
منقول عن المنقب محمد وهبان
https://t.co/n4P7E92lQI
A Stanford student got reported for academic misconduct last semester.
His research paper was so good his professor assumed he bought it.
The academic integrity hearing lasted 3 hours.
Here's what happened in that room.
The panel asked him to explain his methodology from scratch. He opened his laptop, pulled up https://t.co/7NsPvmOCXF, and started rebuilding the entire paper live in front of them.
First he fed it his raw notes and asked: "You are a research methodology expert. Here are my raw notes. Identify the 3 strongest arguments buried in this data, rank them by originality, and show me exactly where each one challenges or extends existing literature."
The professors went quiet.
Then he ran: "Now simulate a hostile peer reviewer with a PhD in this field. Generate every serious objection they would raise against my thesis. Then tell me which objections actually have merit and which ones I can dismantle."
One professor leaned forward and asked him to stop so she could write down the prompt.
He kept going. "Take my weakest argument and steelman it harder than I did. Show me what it would look like if it were airtight. Then tell me what I'd need to prove to get it there."
Then the one that ended the hearing. "You are my thesis advisor. I have 24 hours before submission. Read this draft and tell me the single change that would move this from a B+ to an A. Be brutal."
He walked them through how he'd used that last output to rewrite his conclusion three times until it held up under every objection in the room.
What took most PhD candidates 6 months of back-and-forth with advisors, he was doing in real-time inside a single workflow.
The panel didn't just clear him.
They gave him the highest grade in the department's history and asked him to present the workflow to faculty.
The irony is beautiful. The paper looked too good to be human because he'd found a way to think harder than most humans bother to.
That's not cheating. That's the new ceiling.
@im_vensor Each bus to cost over USD 333000, which is UGX1.18 billion. Ha ha hiiii
Call the group coffee plantation owner's association based on your above 5 acreage in farm size. Or large coffee farmer's association... Otherwise, every coffee farmer in Uganda is a commercial coffee producer.
Last week Thursday we formed the Commercial Coffee Producers Association of Uganda. We have been Abel to do this with the technical assistance of @ITCnews & support of @UKinUganda. Membership is open to those who are in the coffee value chain for commercial purposes. Our dream is to make the most of Uganda’s coffee blessing. Our chairman is @DrIanClarke, large scale coffee farmer & exporter. @KBarigyeis his Vice, @BarbaraMugeni is our Treasurer & @MimiMutesa -Secretary. The rest are Board Members. There is a subscription fee for anyone eligible & wishes to join
The Original “Star Taffa” Is Dead
There are headlines you read twice -not because you didn’t understand them, but because your soul politely refuses to cooperate. Chuck Norris is dead.
In 1980s #Uganda, that statement would have been rejected at the village level, appealed at district, and overturned nationally. Because we had a standing policy about #ChuckNorris, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone: “Star taffa.” Stars don’t die. And Chuck wasn’t just a star -he was the footnote that explained the rule.
Don't blame us, those were the good old days of 'Obwavu Musolo' by Kyeswa, and I recall a that memorable line from some other act "Kitufu, Gwe Nabiwata?"
Back then, entertainment came without buffering -because there was nothing to buffer. No Netflix, no AI, life had no Wi-Fi, no “skip intro.” Just a battered Drum or The Spear Magazine, a few tired Reader’s Digests, Nick Carter Novels and imagination that did most of the heavy lifting. Mine, fortunately - or unfortunately -could draw.
In the dusty holiday afternoons of O-Level, somewhere behind The Centre near Watoto Church, the 'Kibanda' cinema unofficially hired me. Payment? Free entry and the equivalent of a packet of Rex cigarettes. Prestige? Immeasurable.
My job was to bring America to Kampala - one poster at a time.
One masterpiece still lingers: Chuck Norris, calm as Sunday morning, holding two Uzis (guns) like they were TV remotes. Not angry. Not hurried. Just… inevitable. I didn’t draw him. I documented him.
Chucks eyes were always calm like a man who had already solved the problem before the problem knew it existed. I drew him larger than life -because that is how we saw him. Not an actor. A solution.
In the bigger scheme of things, he was messaging American foreign policy statements during the era of the #ColdWar .
Missing in Action - he found them.
Delta Force -he was the delta and the force.
Invasion USA -honestly, that invasion didn’t stand a chance.
Can you imagine Chuck in the Strait of Hormuz today? Those shaheed drones would be easily taken out 'Chuck-Style'.
We believed things about him that even our teachers didn’t dare correct. That diseases checked his schedule before attempting infection. That diplomacy was simply waiting for Chuck to arrive. That in Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee didn’t win -he survived.
So now they say he’s gone.
But let’s be honest - Chuck Norris doesn’t die. He simply becomes unavailable for sequels.
Somewhere beyond our view, one has to feel sorry for the Grim Reaper. Chuck has probably, now, got him in check!
For those of us who not only watched movies on the big screens of Neetah, Odion, Norman, Delight Cinemas, but also video halls, shacks aka Kibandas, who marketed Hollywood with crayons, markers, chalk, paint and courage, Chuck remains undefeated. He remains the original 'star taffa'.
Because if death came for Chuck…
…it probably had to make an appointment.
#RIPChuckNorris #Hollywood
Kenya like love story on education, thievery terms
If you want to legally rob people,
Without harming them,
Just start a primary school and give it whatever name,
But,
In between the name and school add INTERNATIONAL.
DOLPHINS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL.
In the curriculum, add things like Ballet, Chess, Band, Taekwondo, and Swimming.
Now put whatever figure you want on the fee structure.
Rob them.
Buy a bus,
Charge 300k as transport fee per month.
Steal,
Organise a parents’ sports day every term,
Steal,
A trip outside the country once a term,
Put whatever figure, let’s say 14m to Egypt for four days.
Interviews every term, charge them 100$
Put the admission fee at 300$.
Even pre-school.
Uniforms to be sourced from one very specific shop at Arena Mall.
The curriculum is CBC,
Dolphins International School is only based in Kungu,
The pupils are all Ugandan ,
Mr Edgar, the head teacher, has no passport, and the furthest he has ever gone is Hoima for a teachers’ retreat.
Class teachers are Waiswa, Kamembo, Madam Selly.
For lunch, instead of cheese burgers and pizzas, serve them peas and cabbage.
Call yourself a Director.
Get rich.
On My Mind!? Dr. Obote spent his last term in office, unofficially separated from ‘Maama’ Miria Obote. For, how could he trust a woman whose king he had raided and forced into exile!
Well, her speech on this day 40+years ago must have inspired a guerrilla somewhere to tap into a block vote in future, of hitherto marginalized women.
Better late than never…. Happy women’s day✍🏾
#SimanyiObaNtegeerekeka🤔
RWANDA REGRETS ONE-SIDED SANCTIONS
Link: https://t.co/9AkT7q93nw
To all US and international companies doing business with the Rwanda Defence Force @RwandaMoD, or with companies owned or linked to the Rwanda Defence Force: The @USTreasury OFAC has sanctioned the @RwandaMoD and its senior military leadership. Companies reportedly owned by, linked to, or operating in close coordination with the RDF include:
(1) Gabiro Agro Processing Industry
(2) Agro Processing Trust Corporation (APTC)
(3) Rwanda Fertiliser Company (RFC)
(4) Zigama Credit and Savings Bank
(5) Rwanda Engineering and Manufacturing Corporation (REMCO)
We are making it clear to our friends in Congress and the @WhiteHouse: No waivers. No exceptions. No backdoor access to the U.S. financial system for RDF-owned or RDF-linked enterprises while sanctionable conduct continues.
Do not be a sanction buster: Any U.S. company, bank, investor, insurer, or firm clearing U.S. dollar transactions should conduct enhanced due diligence immediately. The U.S. banking system is not a revenue pipeline for sanctioned military actors. Compliance is not optional.
@HouseForeignGOP @HouseForeign @SenateForeign @SFRCdems @FinancialCmte
@zipline @TekExperts @GinkgoBioworks @AmChamRwanda @eni @BioNTech_Group
Diplomacy
I am a Conference Services Coordinator in the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management at the United Nations in New York.
My job is the room. When the Security Council meets, I prepare the room. I set up the horseshoe table. I test the translation headsets. I print the agenda. I place the name placards. Each placard is printed in Garamond on 280-gram ivory cardstock. The font has not changed since 1994. The cardstock weight has not changed since 2001. I have opinions about both but nobody has asked. Nobody has asked about anything since 2001.
The Security Council chamber has fifteen seats at the horseshoe. Each seat has a microphone, a headset with six channels, and a name placard.
Channel 1 is English.
Channel 2 is French.
Channel 3 is Spanish.
Channel 4 is Russian.
Channel 5 is Chinese.
Channel 6 is Arabic.
I test all six channels before every meeting. I have listened to the word "test" in six languages approximately four thousand times in my career. The Arabic test voice is my favorite. He has been doing it since 2008. He sounds like a man who has accepted something profound about the nature of repetition. I have never asked him what.
On March 2, 2026, the agenda read: "Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict."
The topic was chosen weeks in advance. The United States holds the Security Council presidency for March 2026. The American delegation proposed the topic in February. Children. Technology. Education. Conflict. Four words that fit on one line of UN letterhead. I print forty copies of each agenda. The letterhead has the UN emblem at the top in Pantone 279 C. I have printed forty copies of approximately three hundred and fourteen agendas in my time here. I do not have a favorite. But this one I will remember.
The presiding officer was First Lady Melania Trump.
This required adjustments.
The First Lady is not a head of state. She is not a diplomat. She is not a permanent representative. She holds no official position at the United Nations. The Security Council has been presided over by heads of state, foreign ministers, and permanent representatives since 1946. It has never been presided over by a spouse. I checked the records. I checked them twice because I assumed I had made an error. I had not made an error. I then looked for the form. There is a form for everything at the United Nations. There is a form for visiting heads of state. There is a form for foreign ministers. There is a form for representatives who bring additional delegates requiring overflow seating. There is not a form for this. I filed her under "Dignitary — Other." The category is typically reserved for the Secretary-General's guests at the annual holiday reception. It has never been used for the president of the Security Council. It has now been used once.
The advance team arrived on February 26. Seven people. They had requirements.
The podium needed to be adjusted. The standard Security Council podium is forty-two inches. The advance team requested forty-four inches. I built a riser from plywood. I covered it in the same UN blue fabric as the chamber seating. Pantone 279 C. I measured it three times. It is exactly forty-four inches. Forty-four inches is two inches taller than every head of state, foreign minister, and permanent representative who has stood at that podium since 1952. The extra two inches are not policy. They are preference. I built them anyway because I am Conference Services and Conference Services does not have preferences. Conference Services has specifications.
The advance team also requested specific lighting. The chamber has eight overhead panels. They asked that panels three and four be adjusted to reduce shadows at the podium. I coordinated with Facilities Management. Facilities said the panels had not been adjusted since 2019. The last time was for a special session on climate. They adjusted them. The shadows are gone. The podium is lit. The lighting does not have a position on children in conflict. The lighting has a position on the First Lady's face, which is: no shadows.
They also requested a specific water service. Still water, room temperature, in a glass, not a bottle. I provided this. The glass was placed at the podium's right side, six inches from the edge. I have a chart for podium water placement. It accounts for glass diameter, podium surface area, microphone cable routing, and the statistical likelihood that the speaker will gesture with the right hand. The horseshoe water chart is more complicated — it accounts for fifteen glasses, fifteen microphones, and the variable distance between delegations depending on which rotation we are in. This year Pakistan and Panama sit adjacent. Their placards are nearly identical at arm's length. I have repositioned the water glasses to prevent confusion. I am very good at water. It is the one thing in this building that I fully control.
I was preparing the briefing binders for the meeting on the evening of February 27. Standard procedure. Background materials on the agenda topic. Relevant Secretary-General reports. Statistical annexes. Statements from UNICEF and the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. I tabbed each section with color-coded dividers. Section 1 is blue. Section 2 is green. Section 3 is yellow. Section 3 is "Recent Developments Relevant to the Agenda Topic." The tab is yellow because yellow is the color the United Nations assigns to urgency. I have never been certain the delegates know this. I have never been certain it matters.
At approximately 10:00 AM local time on February 28, a missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh all-girls primary school in Minab, Hormozgan province, Iran.
I learned about this the way I learn about most things. A colleague forwarded a link. I was at my desk. I was printing the briefing binder. The printer was on page sixteen of forty-three. I read the link on my phone. The printer continued. I did not stop it. I do not know why I did not stop it. The pages came out warm. They are always warm. I have never thought about this before. I am thinking about it now.
One hundred and seventy students were inside the school. They were between seven and twelve years old. Saturday is a school day in Iran. They were in class when the strike hit. Between one hundred and one hundred and eighty were killed, depending on the source.
Depending on the source.
The variation is eighty children. Eighty children is the margin of error. I work at the United Nations. I prepare agendas. I print forty copies. I have never prepared a sentence where eighty children is a rounding discrepancy between sources. I do not know what to do with this sentence so I am placing it here and continuing to the next one, which is what the United Nations does.
The strike was part of Operation Epic Fury. The United States and Israel. The same operation that struck Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, Kermanshah. The country whose First Lady would preside over a meeting called "Children in Conflict" had struck a school full of children two days before the meeting about children. I am not editorializing. I am reading the calendar. The calendar is editorializing.
I updated the briefing binders on March 1. I added the UNICEF statement. UNICEF reported, on March 2, that it was "deeply concerned by reports of strikes in Iran and across the region." It reported that schools had been struck, "including a girls' school in Minab in southern Iran." It said "scores of students are reportedly being killed and others injured." I want to explain the word "scores." Scores is the word the United Nations uses when the number is large enough to be true and specific enough to be a problem but the institution has not yet decided how much of the problem to acknowledge. Between one hundred and one hundred and eighty is not "scores." It is a catastrophe with a margin of error. But catastrophe is not a word that appears in UNICEF situation reports. Neither is slaughter. Neither is massacre. Neither is the sound a building makes. UNICEF situation reports use "scores" and "reportedly." I have been at the UN long enough to know that the distance between the word and the thing it describes is where the institution lives. It is a comfortable distance. You can furnish it. Many people have.
I placed the UNICEF statement in Section 3 of the binder: "Recent Developments Relevant to the Agenda Topic." The yellow tab. The topic is children in conflict. Children in Minab were in a conflict. They were in a school. The missile found both. I placed the statement in Section 3 because that is where relevant developments go. I did not place it on the cover page. Relevant developments are not cover pages. Cover pages are for the agenda. The agenda is "Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict." The agenda does not specify whose children. The agenda does not specify whose conflict. The agenda does not specify whose technology delivered the conflict to the children. It is a general agenda. The United Nations specializes in general agendas. Specificity is for other institutions. I have not determined which ones.
I printed forty copies.
March 2, 2026. 8:00 AM. I arrive at the chamber. I test the microphones. I test the headsets. Channel 1, English. Test. Channel 2, French. Essai. Channel 3, Spanish. Prueba. Channel 4, Russian. Channel 5, Chinese. Channel 6, Arabic.
The Arabic test voice is still there. He still sounds like he has accepted something. Today I think I understand what.
8:30 AM. I place the name placards. I work clockwise from Seat 1. Bahrain. China. Colombia. Democratic Republic of the Congo. Denmark. France. Greece. Latvia. Liberia. Pakistan. Panama. Russian Federation. Somalia. United Kingdom.
United States of America.
I place this placard last. Not for any reason. Alphabetically it is last. It is the same Garamond. The same 280-gram ivory cardstock. The same color, the same weight, the same font. It does not look different from the other fourteen. Name placards do not carry information about what a country did on a Saturday morning in February. Name placards carry a name. That is their entire function. I placed it the way I place all of them: centered, upright, legible from twelve feet. Then I adjusted it by one millimeter. I do not know why. The millimeter did not change anything. Nothing I do today will change anything.
9:15 AM. Delegations arrive. Coffee is available in the anteroom. The coffee is supplied by the UN Commissary and it is not good coffee but it has been the same coffee since 1997 and the delegates expect it the way they expect the horseshoe and the headsets and the failure of the institution to do the thing the institution was built to do. The American delegation requests iced water. I provide this. I also confirm the still water, room temperature, in the glass, six inches from the podium edge. Both waters are correct. Both are temperature-appropriate. I have fulfilled my responsibilities with respect to hydration.
9:45 AM. I place the briefing binders. One at each seat. Forty copies. The yellow tab of Section 3 faces down. This is standard. All sections face down. The binder is closed. The delegates open them or they do not. Most do not. I know this because I collect the binders after each meeting and most of them still have the crease pattern they had when I placed them. The pages inside are undisturbed. The UNICEF statement sits between the statistical annex and the Secretary-General's note, tabbed in yellow, for urgency, unread. But the binders are there. Section 3 is there. The children are in Section 3. They have been placed in Section 3 and they will remain in Section 3 for the duration of the meeting and the duration of the collection and the duration of the filing and the duration of everything that follows, which is nothing.
10:00 AM. The meeting begins.
The First Lady is introduced. She walks to the podium. My podium. Forty-four inches. Plywood, blue fabric, Pantone 279 C. The lighting is correct. Panels three and four. No shadows. The water is in position. The glass is six inches from the edge. Everything I built is working. Everything I prepared is in place. The room is doing exactly what I designed it to do, which is hold things.
She speaks for approximately twenty minutes.
I have a copy of her prepared remarks. I will share the portions that are relevant to the agenda topic, which is children in conflict, which is all of them, which is none of them.
She said: "The U.S. stands with all of the children throughout the world."
She said: "A nation that makes learning sacred protects its books, its language, its science, and its mathematics — it protects its future."
She said: "Imagine the loss of potential to our collective humanity — new medical breakthroughs, advancements in food security, groundbreaking technologies — all gone."
Imagine.
The students at Shajareh Tayyebeh all-girls primary school were between seven and twelve years old. They were in class on a Saturday morning. They were studying books. Language. Science. Mathematics. All four of the things that a nation protects when it makes learning sacred. They do not need us to imagine the loss of potential. The loss of potential is not a hypothetical in Minab. It landed. It landed at approximately 10:00 AM, in the form of a missile manufactured by the country whose First Lady was standing at a forty-four-inch podium, under adjusted lighting, with a glass of still water six inches from her right hand, saying the word "imagine" to a room that did not have to.
She spoke for approximately twenty minutes.
She did not mention Iran.
She did not mention Minab.
She did not mention the school.
She did not mention the one hundred and seventy students. She did not mention the ages. She did not mention Saturday. She did not mention the missile. She did not mention Operation Epic Fury. She did not mention the country that launched it. She did not mention the country she lives in. She did not mention the briefing binder in front of every delegate. She did not mention Section 3. She did not mention the yellow tab I placed there for urgency.
Section 3 of the briefing binder was in front of every delegation. The UNICEF statement. "Scores of students." I know the binders were there because I placed them there at 9:45 AM. They were still there at noon when I collected them. Most were unopened. The yellow tabs were undouched. The relevant developments remained in Section 3. They did not reach the podium. They did not reach the adjusted lighting. They did not reach the glass of room-temperature still water, six inches from the edge, which was also untouched. The water and the children had the same status in that room. Present. Unacknowledged. Room temperature.
After the meeting, a journalist asked the Secretary-General's spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, whether the Secretary-General would discuss the Minab school strike with the First Lady.
He said: "It is meant to be a greeting. It is not a meeting."
A greeting.
Not a meeting.
About children. In conflict.
I have coordinated approximately three hundred and fourteen meetings of the Security Council. I have tested headsets in six languages four thousand times. I have built podium risers, adjusted lighting panels, placed water glasses according to a chart I maintain and update quarterly, and printed agendas in Garamond on 280-gram ivory cardstock for occasions that range from sanctions to ceasefires to the annual debate on the situation in the Middle East, which is always the same situation in the Middle East. I do not comment on the substance of meetings. I am Conference Services. I prepare the room. The room does not have opinions. The room has specifications.
But I will say this.
I printed forty copies of an agenda called "Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict." I placed a UNICEF statement about dead children in Section 3, behind a yellow tab, in a briefing binder that no one opened. I built a podium riser out of plywood and covered it in UN blue and measured it three times so the wife of the president whose military struck the school could stand two inches taller than every head of state who has ever stood there and say the word "imagine." I adjusted the lighting so there would be no shadows on her face when she said it. I placed still water six inches from her right hand. The water was room temperature. The children were not a topic.
Iran's Ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, called the meeting "deeply shameful and hypocritical."
I do not use those words. I use Garamond. I use Pantone 279 C. I use 280-gram ivory cardstock and six-channel headsets and a water placement chart I update quarterly and briefing binders tabbed in yellow for urgency and blue for reference and green for background. These are the materials of the institution. The institution has many materials. It has fewer results. The materials are excellent. I take pride in the materials.
The podium riser is still in the chamber. Facilities has not collected it. It is forty-four inches of plywood wrapped in blue fabric. It does not have a foreign policy. It does not have a position on children. It does not have a position on Iran. It does not have a position on the distance between the word "imagine" and the sound a school makes when the imagining is over. It held the speech and the water glass and the adjusted lighting and it did its job.
I also did my job.
The agenda is filed.
It is the first one I cannot file under precedent, because there is no precedent for a meeting where the agenda described the crisis and the presiding nation caused it and the room I built held both at the same time and neither mentioned the other and the binders I prepared sat unopened between them.
It is filed under "Children."
The tab is yellow.
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