Round 1 - standings

I WOULD NOW LIKE THE GOVERNMENT TO WHIP THE FLOOR

“Papers and pens out” and as Ayesha Mirza, said that the Lahore School Debates of 2010 were kicked off. The excitement and enthusiasm could be felt in the SBS Library as students of 33 teams from over 20 Pakistani institutions were packed in the room. The proceedings started with the registration of the teams at 10:00 am and orientation packages were handed out to the participants. This was followed by a draft where the match ups were set and announced. The lack of a microphone made this task difficult so turns were taken to scream out the instructions to the delegates. The 1st round started at 12:50 pm and was concluded by 2:20 pm.

The positions for the 1st round were:

This house believes that Pakistan and China should create a joint nuclear task force to keep Indian ambitions in check.

This house believes that Israel should step out of nuclear ambiguity.

This house believes in an Islamic nuclear umbrella

Many of the speakers stood out in the opening sessions. For example speaking from a propositional position on the issue of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity, the delegate from AKU stated the case of going to war. So start amassing your weapons people. A war is coming to an area near you. Plus he accepted a point of information in the last minute which is basically a cardinal sin of debating. So why not wage a war against him? By the way if you don’t know the guy, he is the one with the hair. To this the delegate from Bahria University reprimanded the delegate and asked him to “warm his seat”. Little miss goody two shoes. Or should I say heart shaped socks. The delegate from Lahore Alma…um….was not…um…um…make her point quite clearly and mostly confused the topic for US Israel relations. Ummmm…….For people who think I m stepping over the line….umm…I am just stating the facts.

The match up between SISA and Beaconhouse Liberty was of contrasts. The way they articulated their ideas and made their points. The way the delegate from SISA talked slowly to consolidate his position while Miss Brooche, ahem ahem, the whip from Beaconhouse started the bang. Using a wide range of sound frequencies during her speech, she “pitchslapped” her opposition. And now that we are discussing exaggeration, why don’t we mention the delegate from LGS Defence? From the disgusted face to her victory dance, she kept us thoroughly entertained. “Maaaaadddaammmmm!!!!” Expression Overload much? Can you please let the other delegates talk? And where did you come up with those airy fairy concepts of debating?

Next, lets talk about the debate between KC and FAST. All I’m going to say here is that KC lost their 3rd speaker to the usher, even before the debate started. wonder how they handled the rest of the debate. The PCBA vs. UCL debate was a little more interesting. This match-up was very amusing indeed. On one side, we had a sharp, haughty speaker, being all smug and hurling sarcastic comments at his competitors, and on the other side, a quiet and shy speaker, talking at the speed of around 8 words per minute, and leaving awkward silences during his speech. To make things worse, the opposition ended up insulting his 6th grade history teacher too! Wonder how he felt about that??

Some Pictures from Round 1: