Arguing around the world

At the crack of dawn on Boxing Day, a small group of St Andrean debaters boarded various flights heading towards the Philippines. They were some of the best debaters St Andrews has to offer, brave and unyielding warriors of discourse who, over the course of the coming days, would represent us at the World University Debating Championships in Manila. That’s right, we sent a bunch of nerdy kids over Christmas, to a place half way around the world to do verbal battle with other nerdy kids. 

For three days, the St Andreans fought it out in the preliminary rounds. The motions ranged from making paternity leave obligatory to supporting the movement of free labour. In the latter, St Andrews C managed to accuse the host-nation of being a quasi-dictatorial state, but nonetheless successfully refuted the motion with an audacious mix of good speaking, solid analysis and sheer charisma. St Andrews B went as far as labeling a motion as ‘batshit crazy’ in front of the judge who wrote it. However, thanks to the brute force of their convictions and arguments, they avoided his wrath and ended the debate with a solid position. Finally, St Andrews A (both freshers) were pitched against some extremely strong teams and only narrowly missed the break to the octo-finals. One judge for St Andrews, Nicolle Begbie, was also promoted to chair judge, an amazing achievement for her first international competition.

In proper ‘university debating’ fashion, alcohol was flowing though the dance floor was rather vacant (there’s nothing like a group of debaters avoiding the dance floor by discussing the wider implications of Beyonce’s ‘Run the World’). It all culminated in a massive New Year’s Eve Party, which was fuelled by an open bar. Although none of the three teams were fortunate enough to reach the elimination rounds, they returned to St Andrews confident that nobody knows what the hell an ‘octo-final’ is anyway.

Written by Lucy Keen, Lukasz Krol and Kurt Jose, understand writers