This blog post has three substantive points (well, in debating tradition, it’s more like two and a half), but first some pieces of extraneous rebuttal to the previous posts:
– Here is an adorable picture of Stumeron, sharing a chair:
– It took until mid-afternoon for us to remember it, but last night Richard attempted to prove that it is possible to ceilidh dance (specifically, perform a Gay Gordon’s) to most popular music. The partner he chose for this demonstration was Doug, the GUU Convenor. It was felt that you ought to know this.
– The street we walked along to get to last night’s social apparently contains some sort of Polish Hollywood Walk of Fame, with stars embedded in the ground. The names on these stars included Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Penelope Cruz, and Nicholas Cage. The rest of the text was in Polish, so we have no idea what links those people, or what they have to do with Warsaw. We suspect, given our lack of proficiency in the Polish language, this mystery will go unsolved.
Part One: Scottish Debating
The problem with having a team breaking to partial-double-quarters is that it means you have to get up very, very early, which isn’t good if you’ve been up very very late. In the case of Ryan, this meant being awake at 7:00am, when Richard was still a little drunk. That didn’t stop them from analysing the room that Dryan were going to face in their round, and as Ryan left to go downstairs, Richard suggested that they could end up extending off Tel Aviv A, especially if it was one of their stronger subjects, like Economics.
The motion therefore read: THS BRICS countries creating alternatives to the current international economic institutions (e.g, The World Bank, IMF, WTO) and, sure enough, Dryan were in CG, with Tel Aviv in OG, with an opp bench consisting of Sciences Po A and Leiden A.
They put in an extremely good performance in what was a tough room, showing off what we’ve come to expect from them as a team. Dan even managed to get a laugh from the audience, despite the rather dry subject matter. However, after a unanimous decision, it was decided that the two teams that would go through were Tel Aviv and Leiden in the long diagonal, with Dryan being edged out. There were no hard feelings from any of us – Leiden definitely effectively rebutted from CO, and well deserved their spot in the Quarters.
The other Scottish teams (who thankfully all avoided hitting each other) had different experiences. Edinburgh A, who were also in CG, weren’t nearly as delighted with an Economics motion, and, immediately after the debate, were extremely pessimistic about their chances of moving on. Whilst they didn’t advance, they were nevertheless informed by Duncan, who was judging, that they had been much closer to taking a spot in the quarters than they realised, and that they had nothing to worry about.
Glasgow A, by contrast, stormed into the final from OO, defeating TCD Hist B and Central European A. In doing so, they became the standard bearers for Scotland (literally, as Mooney did the quarter with a saltire in his back pocket) with everyone rallying behind them in their quarter. Which, as it turned out, was the veritable ‘Room of Death’, containing PEP A, Cambridge A, and Oxford C. GUU drew CG, meaning they were extending off MDG and across the short diagonal from Cambridge, with Oxford in CO.
The Motion was “THW require the economic policies of political parties to be approved by an independent panel of experts before being used in campaigns.”
As well as making two fantastic speeches, Bethany and Owen attacked the debate with impressively high amounts of sass, with Bethany at one point asking a speaker making a POI “if he was going to actually be clear this time.” At the debates’ conclusion, most of us were extremely optimistic about their chances, believing they had acquitted themselves very well in a truly excellent room.
However, it was not to be: PEP and Oxford C were to be the victors, leaving Glasgow just on the outside looking in.
The performances of all the SSDC teams in out-rounds more than vindicated their position as breaking teams, and everyone can go home with their heads held high. Scottish Debating is in a great place, and we can be proud to be a part of it.
Part Two: General Debating
Before anything else, I need to recount the sad story of Ljubljana A, possibly the most unfortunate debating team I have ever come across. At the break social, they were announced as the final ESL breaking team, and we were all happy for them – as a team from a lesser-known circuit, a break would be a big deal for them. Unfortunately, it soon emerged that a miscommunication had resulted in Leiden B’s language status had been incorrectly entered in the tab, so they had not been counted as an ESL team. They therefore broke, bumping Ljubljana down to 17th place. Not only did they have the frustration of just missing the break, but they were given the illusion of breaking, only to have it snatched away. Our hearts go out to them.
The motions were as follows:
ESL Quarter: THBT Western States should fund the spread of atheism in Iraq through the provision of health care, education, and welfare.
This motion saw seven of eight opposition teams progress, with three judging splits out of four, which indicates that there were very good Gov teams that couldn’t progress due to not having as good points on the Proposition side, something which seemed like it occurred in the room we watched. The CA team have done a generally good job of motions in this tournament, but this one was definitely problematic.
ESL Semi: THR the safe space’s movement’s attempts to significantly limit speech on university campuses.
Who knew that St Andrews’ Cubs final would share a motion with a Euros out-round?
Open Semi: Recently there have been a high number of acid attacks against women, either due to personal feuds or for their non-conformity to Islamic values. Iranian courts that are governed by Sharia Law ruled that victims have the right to choose to blind their attackers by putting acid in their eye(s). THS Iran’s extension of the ‘eye for an eye’ principle to the victims of acid attacks.
Before you ask, Penny had spent the day sightseeing, and was unable to watch this motion happen. As soon as we started talking about it, she produced a characterisation of Iran no-one had considered, and analysis that would have won the debate in the face from CO.
One semi on this motion will almost certainly be one of those rooms that is talked about for years. The motion certainly has potential for people to be offensive and, unfortunately, that was realised in a controversial manner. We can’t go into much detail about the exact content, but the judges spent an hour and forty minutes adjudicating, and both spots being split for, including a three-way split for the final position. TCD Hist A and Oxford B eventually emerged, and will meet PEP A and Oxford A in the final.
If you’re interested in any of these out-rounds, they should all be on YouTube by now, if you search EUDC Warsaw 2016. There is also a selection of in-rounds, so you can watch Stumeron in Round 2 or Richard’s roll of the chair in Round 4, should you so desire.
Part Three: Out-Rounds Banter
– A major feature of Day Four was Dan getting what can most accurately be described as “a major case of the shits”. This resulted in him having to leave the out-rounds venue for most of the afternoon, and making what he claims to be 22 visits to the bathroom in one day. We are sympathetic to him, but we also find the whole thing fairly hilarious. He did make it to the social, and got drunk off two drinks, due to not having anything in his stomach.
– Steph: “I can’t wait until you fuck off back to Canada”
Ryan: “You do have all my stuff. You could burn it if you wanted to.”
Steph: (laughs menacingly)
– Richard missed the bus to the venue in the morning, and had to share a taxi with Erin and Nicola. When they arrived, they, along with some Irish debaters, had to work out which building it was. While doing so, they walked down a pavement where a workman was digging something up with a small digger. He was not worried about swinging his scoop in the direction of debaters.
– Cameron, meanwhile, chose to walk to the venue. This resulted in him walking through a Polish housing estate, an experience he describe as both intimidating and very communist.
– In case you needed evidence that debating has taken a toll on all of us, the task of using a plug adapter to charge his phone was too confusing for Ryan by the afternoon.
– This is already getting long (this is, metaphorically, 7:15) so chat about Thursday’s social and the rest of Friday will be saved for tomorrow. Safe to say, there was a lot of it.
– fringe guy
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