Charles University hosts third annual international debate tournament
Charles University's Faculty of Law hosted its third annual international debate tournament this weekend. Some sixty students from thirteen countries around Europe, flocked to Prague to present their debating skills - in British Parliamentary style.
"My name is Martin Jambor and I'm an adjudicator, and I'm also a member of the local students' debate club at Charles University. The style we use is called British Parliamentary style because it was based on discussions - at least that's what the legend says - in the British Parliament very many years ago and that's how it evolved in British universities. In a debate, there are four teams with two students in each team and they are called the government and the opposition, with two teams on each side.
"The first governmental team is expected to come with a proposition or specific measure that should be implemented somewhere, which must not necessarily be a parliamentary measure like a new law or anything but can be a UN resolution or a new rule in a local school it can be pretty much anything. The opposition on the other side of course claims that the proposition is bad and that we should either stick to the status quo, to the current state of affairs, or they can also propose a counter plan, which they sometimes do but are not required to."
In the Czech Republic, the debating tradition is almost non-existent. During the forty years of communist rule, it was mainly dissidents who held debates. Today, the number of debate clubs is growing but very slowly and Czechs have yet to warm up to this 'western' tradition. Many still believe it's an intellectual activity for people who think they are better than the rest of society.
"Debating teaches you many things. One is to think and talk at the same time, which is quite difficult. In debating, if you are the opposition, you see the government coming with a proposal and then in the same moment when they finish their speech you have to start yours and you have to be against it. This means that you have to listen and then think and talk at the same time. This makes you much quicker at evaluating your opponent's argument and at creating and promoting your own arguments, and it helps you with the structure of the argument. The other thing is that in a debate it could happen that you would actually be proposing the contrary of what you think yourself and that really helps you with understanding the other point of view and actually being very critical of your own point of view."
In each debate, there are eight students. They are given fifteen minutes to prepare and have seven minutes each to argue for or against the motion. In order to make the process interactive, there are what are called "points of information" - short interruptions of speech from the opponents of the current speaker. At this year's debate the topics discussed included the motion to look beyond the walls of Rome for the new Pope, the proposal to sell arms to China, and - as you have probably guessed already - the call on Kofi Annan to resign as UN Secretary General.
What's your name?
Male Czech debater 1: "My name is Jan Stepan and I have been debating since 1997, which makes it eight years now."
Male Slovak debater 2: "And my name is Michal Hrusik and I have been debating since 2000, which makes it five years for me."
What does debating mean to you personally?
Male Czech debater 1: "Debating is a great chance to get your argumentation and thinking straight, to improve your language, especially in international tournaments where you debate in English. You learn how to express yourself clearly and in a structured manner and you also learn about many topics that you wouldn't normally encounter in life and you need to debate them and therefore you need to have some knowledge about them."
Male Slovak debater 2: "One really interesting aspect for me is that you sometimes have to defend a motion that you would generally disagree with and that teaches you to look at things from another perspective and that means that your view can become quite broad."
How popular is debating in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia?
Male Czech debater 1: "I would like it to be more popular but generally we have quite a wide range or quite a number of debaters at secondary schools. There is a debate league between secondary schools but then on the university level, it's more of a pass-time activity, where it's not taken that seriously but still there are about three or four university teams and we have about three or four tournaments in the Czech Republic each year."
Male Slovak debater 2: "The situation is pretty much the same in Slovakia. I am quite satisfied with the level of debating at high schools and as far as universities are concerned, most students are generally on an average level when it comes to knowledge. Students in the post-communist countries are still not that interested in the issues that are debated around the world but those students who are interested in debating are usually at quite a high level and their knowledge is quite high."
Do you follow parliamentary debates or discussions sometimes?
Male Czech debater 1: "I definitely do and I must say that some speakers in parliament could use a bit of debating training, even though competitive debate has very specific rules that wouldn't necessarily apply to parliament but basically the debating we do is derived from British parliamentary style so it is supposed to simulate the debating that is going on in the British parliament and I think it would only be better if the Czech parliament got its levels of debate as close as possible to the British parliament."
Would you say that Czechs or Slovaks are big debaters?
Male Czech debater 1: "We are not big debaters. 'Hrusa' [Michal Hrusik] and I have experience from world debating championships and European debating championships and we sort of come in the middle. We are a little better than average debaters but we definitely have the disadvantage of not being native speakers, especially when we debate native teams. The other problem is that Czech debating doesn't have such a huge and colourful history as British or American debating, for example."
Male Slovak debater 2: "The main difference between the post-communist countries and countries like Ireland, the UK, or Australia, I think lies in the problem that the students' initiative - both high school and university - is not very high, which means that they spend four or five years going to a pub and getting a job and that's all their life entails. They are simply not interested in anything else. Even companies that we approach for sponsorship make it hard and tough for us because they don't even know what debating is about and always look at us thinking 'what kind of stupidity is this'.
"Students also have the same reaction. When they see an invitation to a debate on the bulletin board, for example, they are not interested and don't want to go there. In the western countries, the situation is much different. These extra-curriculum activities are part of the study programme there and they want to work on themselves and achieve something in the future, speak in a good manner, and these are probably the reasons why they want to take part in debate programmes in countries like Australia, for instance."
