Heated debates in the heart of Estonia

Posted on Wed, 06/09/2010 - 15:45 | by The Insider

As popularity and quality of debating in the Baltics grows every year, participating in Estonian Open 2010 at the beginning of May was out of question for SSE Riga Debate Society members. We didn't manage to go to Berlin IV which was held in late April (thanks to infamous Eyjafjallajökull), nor did we take part in Kyiv Spring because it was cancelled for unknown reasons, so people have become really debate-hungry since mid-February when MRU Vilnius IV took place. The Tallinn judging pool included such experienced debaters as Jens Henning Fischer, current president of the Berlin Debating Union and the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC), and Mark Manson, one of Oxford's top judges at EUDC. These guys have won ten times as many championships as we have participated in, so we really looked forward to debating under their supervision. Besides, it promised to be way more interesting that the first Marketing lectures.

So this was it – 6 teams, consisting of all three years students, plus several judges went to Estonia ready to stand up for colours of SSE Riga. As soon as we arrived in Tallinn and got our bags unpacked, everyone was welcomed to an introductory workshop where debaters got acquainted with judges and organizers, and a preparatory “warm-up” debate was held. The results were quite reassuring, so, in high spirits, we had some fun during the sauna party and prepared mentally to the hard tomorrow.

The tournament was very good. Despite the fact that organizers' time-management sometimes made us cry, motions were great and diverse. There were not only regular topics about abortion or alcohol, but also a very up-to-date debate about the Catholic Church and whether responsibility for the clergy's crime should be “corporate” (hold the entire church responsible) or individual. Moreover, before the semi-finals, judges decided to mock us a bit and suggest a genuinely ridiculous motion – it was really funny to observe how people (me included) tried to argue how making ALL public toilets “unisex” will decrease gender discrimination and help our society become more integrated.

Five preliminary rounds were over, and 3 SSE Riga teams broke into the semifinals. Unfortunately, one of them was unable to continue as at some point Aurimas Balsiukas felt really bad (too much partying?) and was substituted by one of our judges, Mārtiņš Liberts. This is not actually prohibited, but Aurimas and Ervinas wanted to keep “fair play” and resigned. The semi-final motion was about making it compulsory to send children after 3 years old to kindergartens; sadly, Reinholds and I didn't make it. Still, Roberts and Nikita broke to the finals, which might have been shocking and controversial but by no means uninteresting. The motion was as follows, “This house believes the European Union should demand a formal apology from Russia for crimes committed by the Soviet Union in Central & Eastern Europe.” It was a close one, and all speeches were terrific, but the first place was given to the second government. By the way, the same team, namely Anna Karolin and Sten Andreas Ehrlich, won SSE Riga IV 2009, which just proves their refined debating skills.

Another very important takeaway from Tallinn were workshops and so-called “knowledge sessions” organized by chief adjudicators; the former covered a practical side of debating, for instance, how to improve your structure, differentiate between important arguments and irrelevant ones, etc., while the latter category touched upon different topics of debates such as role of government, international relations, etc. This really helped us expand our knowledge and understanding of the way this world works. I, personally, highly appreciated the international relations workshop, which provided us with invaluable information about the topic as well as unusual points of view and approaches to related problems. Just to give an example – if after World War II most of the world's countries signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that a government's primary role is to maintain human rights, can we argue that a state loses its sovereignty when HR are no longer supported? Are the UN, NATO, or whoever else justified to invade such countries? In this case, can we talk about a “just war” which aim is to restore human rights? Can a war anyhow improve the situation? Such sessions make you think, analyze, take into account different points of view, and constantly ask yourself a question “Why?”, and this really boosts your analytical skills and expands your outlook.

To sum up, we all enjoyed Estonian Open 2010 very much and would be eager to return to Tallinn next year. Currently we are preparing to the 2010 EUDC in Amsterdam, which will be held in mid-July, so wish us good luck!

Vladimirs Zlotnikovs

Mini-glossary:

government and opposition - rival sides in a British Parliamentary debate; each of them consists of 2 teams (4 people in total). Government gives reasons why a motion should be accepted, while opposition argues against it.

motion - in simple words, a debate's topic, designed as a formal parliamentary proposal (e.g. "This house would ban abortions")