Feature

Rashedul Hasan Stalin

With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost”. These are the words of William Lloyd Garrison (1805 -1879), a strong proponent of “free blacks movement” in America, and a strong believer in freedom of speech. This vision inspired us to start the English debating movement in Bangladesh. East West University Debating Club (EWUDC) played an important role in this movement to promote World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) format in Bangladesh back in 2003 and 2004 with its two consecutive National Debating Championships. We had friends from NSU, IUB, IUT, DU, and IBA executing the plan for the future of debating in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Debating Council (BDC) is the outcome of that vision. BDC is the National Debating body for English debate in Bangladesh, and is recognized by all the major international debating organizations for its continuous contribution to English debating.

The World Ranking:

The Road map is showing us how to pave the success for Bangladesh in International Debating Championships. This year the big news came from the World Universities Debating Championships: “BANGLADESH CURRENTLY RANKED 16 WITH USA, AUSTRALIA AND ENGLAND AS THE TOP THREE BEST DEBATING NATIONS”. The credit for this achievement goes to those who participated in the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) regularly from Bangladesh since 1989. Last year Bangladesh National School Debating Team was selected and trained by Bangladesh Debating Council and reached the top 16 in the World Schools Debating Championships 2006 and ranked 10th.

For all debaters who were not able to visit this year Worlds in Vancouver, there are some more info on the tournament and specially, on the issues that were discussed at World Debating Council Meeting related to the achievements and contributions of Bangladesh Debating in the global debating movement.

Bangladesh Promoted to as Status B Debating Nation

After acquiring continuous supports from the World Debating Council and from the Universities back in home, World Council Chair Ian Lising announced Bangladesh as status B from status C debating nation in the General Assembly (Pre Council Meeting) in this year WUDC. Bangladesh started its journey for WUDC in 1989 and from then it has come a long way and gradually improved its status in the global debating ranking. Last year several worlds debating website reported the achievements of Bangladesh Debating, Global Debate Website and World Debating Website was among them. Their repots consistently shows the upward curve of our debating movement.

UBC Worlds: a fine & enjoyable tournament

I believe University of British Columbia's Worlds was a fine and well-organized tournament (and the biggest Worlds ever, hurray!). All events ran on time, the organizing committee was kind and helpful. The hotel was great (one five stat and one six star diamond) and the food actually contained vegetables. The motions were fine. Most complaints I heard from my Bangladeshi contingent were some motions were commonwealth bias (UK, Canada, and South-Africa, Myanmar). My prediction is that next year's Worlds will be the first to offer live audio streams of the break rounds. Bangladeshi teams did very well in the Championships, Institute of Business Administration-IBA ends top among all the Teams from Bangladesh. The main break was dominated by IONA teams (Great Britain, Ireland), complemented by the remarkable presence of Helsinki (Canadians, but nonetheless impressive). Bonaparte (Netherlands), SSE (Riga), Hebrew (Israel) and Bonn University (Germany) made it to the ESL semis. SSE and Hebrew even proceeded to the ESL (English as second language) final, which was eventually won by IIU Malaysia. Congrats to all breaking teams.

Bangladesh delegates work closely together at World Council

University Teams form Bangladesh (East West University, Islamic University of Technology-IUT, North South University and University of Dhaka) worked closely together at Council meeting.

Assumption University of Thailand will host Worlds 2008

Thailand gave an amazing presentation of next year's Worlds in the World Council meeting. The venues promise to be absolutely astounding and the organization seems incredibly professional. Hence, I would encourage universities to go to the next Worlds from Bangladesh because it would be more cost efficient and most importantly it would become an “Asian version of Worlds”. The only critical questions about the Thailand proposal at council concerned the political stability of Thailand, in particular the consequences of the recent coup, but most were persuaded by the answers of the organizing committee, a board member of Assumption University and a representative of the Thai consulate.

Multiple debating union / on universities issue (IBA and DU)

Another issue that we have raised in the council which concerns the proposal to allow multiple institutions under one university to debate as Different Teams at Worlds, subject to very strict conditions in which Bangladesh (especially IBA and DU) have different debating unions that serves one university. Decision made by the World Council was, IBA and DU will be representing the University of Dhaka in the Next Worlds

The writer is: Chair, Bangladesh Debating Council Bangladesh Representative to the World Debating Council President, East West University Debating Club, 2003-2004

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