Rules of debating require thought, reason and wit

JAKARTA (JP): Students nationwide, each handpicked by their universities, milled around the grounds of the University of Indonesia's schools of law and letters.

Though thankfully not a literal demonstration for a noble cause, the event was one of a cause: The Indonesian Varsities English Debate 1998, the first national debate in Indonesia, was held to serve as a platform for future endeavors in debating.

Each team has three speakers, with seven minutes allocated for each substantive speech, and five, for the "wrap-up" speech.

The proverb "better late than never" applies in this case, but many students still wondered as to why it took so long for the culture of debating to develop among Indonesian students.

One of the five founders of UI-EDS and supervisor of the 25- member IVED'98 committee Hisar Maruli Manurung, or Ruli as he is usually called, said a primary reason was the difficulty in convincing university administrators to promote the culture of debate.

He said they were not supportive due to the fear of the spread of "bad thoughts".

"They felt that new ideas could oppose university policies... they did not support any attempt to found a debating club," Ruli said. He said that when the element of English was introduced, they jumped at the idea.

"I think universities now feel pressured to produce graduates to compete in the global market, or at least, in the regional market. So students must have English proficiency."

When asked why was it that the first national debate here was not utilizing the national language, he said it had to do more with Indonesian debating history.

"It stems from the debating history here... how this debating society began. There were some enthusiasts, me included, in 1994/1995.

"We participated in some English debates... an experimental extracurricular activity at UI," he said.

In 1996, Ruli was UI's student of the year and the university sent him to the ASEAN Varsities Debate in Kuala Lumpur with Judithia Wirawan, the EDS' current treasurer.

Ruli and Judithia have lost all their debates, but they came home with enough tricks of the trade to spill around.

"There were several aspects which I wanted to be exposed to. Mainly, one was English. The other, debating," said Ruli, now a faculty member of the University's School of Computer Science.

"If it was up to me to socialize the culture of debating, I would like to have an Indonesian debating event."

Patsy Widakuswara, EDS external director and best speaker of this year's Indonesian Varsities English Debate, said the reason English was selected was to promote it on a national level. "Once we do so, Indonesian students can compete on an international level."

If an existing international format could be worked on and improvised upon, an Indonesian format was in the pipeline, she said. "It's like exporting technology... first you import the whole thing and then we add on the local contents."

Ruli said it would take a lot more than a format to teach Indonesians to adhere to the rules of debating.

"Here what people normally regard as debating is one who speaks loudest, who gets to steal the forum, and dominate.

"Some debaters commented that this was not a debate, but a discussion of opinions. In a debate, one must be able to interrupt your opponents, they said."

The culture of interruptions and loudmouths is still deep- rooted in minds, and the utilization of the Australasian format will teach people to accept differing opinions, he said.

"This is possible because with the format, we have seven- minute speeches."

"So if someone really thinks that his or her opinion is right, the person can win on the merit of argument and not domination over an opponent."

What about selling lies to win points off an impossible adjudicator?

"Adjudicators are supposed to represent a crossection of society and sportive debaters would not let indications of what the adjudicators' backgrounds into their case-building."

He said the adjudicators were also requested repeatedly not to bring their prejudices into the debate.

"Say, if I were to advocate atheism to a religious adjudicator, the only approach would be through scientific, or even Darwinian approach, so to talk about physics and nature.

"(The argument) that we are basically cells and atoms and that there was no deity behind our creation. That this was all a process of natural selection."

Adjudicators were given a specific set of rules and they were told to look for matter, manner and method.

When asked on how big a role eloquence and the use of English played in the tournament, he judged it significant.

"I am sure that these institutions sent their students to this event because they spoke (well) in English, not because they were logical," he said.

After speaking to chaperones of debators, he believed that there were several who had spent a lot of time abroad and took on a "cocky" attitude due to fluency in English.

"They have the obvious American and British accents, but when I heard them debate, they had such shallow arguments.

"They see their opponents speaking broken English... so they think this is going to be an easy win."

He added that he always reminded adjudicators that what was important was the conveying of ideas, thoughts and logic.

"As long as they get their arguments across well, they don't need to choose the biggest words.

"They may speak with the most medok (heavy) Javanese accent. They might get their singulars and plurals, is's and are's wrong, but to me they have got a good manner." (ylt)