View over Warsaw – © Lennart Lokstein

The European Universities Debating Championship is over. Winner of the ESL-final is Tel Aviv A (Dan Lahav, Ayal Hayut-man) from Closing Government, thus becoming ESL-Champions, whereas the teams Tel Aviv C (Tom Manor, Noam Dahan) from Opening Government, Leiden D (Lisa Schallenberg, Simon Martina-Perez) from Opening Opposition and Leiden A (Floris Holstege, Emma Lucas) from Closing Opposition become vice ESL-Champions. The final’s motion was “This house believes that western states should support breakaway regions in former Sovjet states (e.g. East Ukraine l South Ossetia) joining the Russian federation conditional on holding free and fair referenda.“. The ESL-final was adjudicated by Anat Shapira (chair), Eliot Pallot, Helena Ivanov, Mifzal Mohammed, Andrew Connery, Clíodhna Ní Chéileachair and Scott Ralston. The debate can be viewed on Youtube.

Winner of the EPL-final is team PEP A (Michael Dunn Goekjian, Stefan Siridžanski), which succeeded as Opening Opposition on the motion “This house would nationalize and provide public access to the Metadata being gathered by online multinational companies.” against the Opening Government team Oxford A (Toby Tricks, Annie Williamson), the Closing Government Oxford B (Sophie Large, Raffy Marshall) and the Closing Opposition TCD Hist A (Dee Courtney, Michael Coleman). The new EPL-Champions ended their speeches “Hopefully for the last time – but not certainly – proud to oppose.” (M.D.G.) and “For the very last time – proud to oppose.” (S.S.), which were humorous allusions to the standard debate speech ending phrase “proud to propose/oppose” and to their successful speaking careers in debating, which apparently they are about to retire from. The EPL-final was adjudicated by Steven Rajavinothan (chair), Sella Nevo, Emilia Carlqvist, Taylor Blackburn, James Clough, Michael Shapira und Radu Cotarcea. The EPL-final is on Youtube, too.

The whole Tab, all preliminary round motions, the speaker rankings (EPL and ESL), the KO-round-constellations and a list of all broken adjudicators can be viewed on tabbie.org.

The motions were:

Preliminary Rounds:

R1: This house regrets the rise of Social media as a primary source of news distribution.

R2: This house supports Barack Obama’s statements that emphasize African-Americans taking individual responsibility for improving their own position in life.

R3: This House would create state-run centres where individuals can purchase and consume psychedelic *drugs* whose primary effect is to alter cognition and perception e.g. LSD and Magic Mushrooms.

R4: This house supports strong government intervention to prevent gentrification.

R5: This house believes that the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra should regularly play the works of Richard Wagner.
Factsheet:Richard Wagner was a 19th century anti-semitic German composer. His music was favored by the Nazis and played at the Nuremberg and reportedly at Nazi Death Camps. When Wagner’s music was played in Israel, it lead to protests and remains controversial.

R6: This house regrets the mass commercialisation of football.

R7: This house supports sanctuary cities in the United States.
Factsheet: A „sanctuary city“, for example San Francisco, does not allow police or city employees (e.g. educators, social, and health care workers), to inquire about an individuals immigration status. These cities do not co-operate with the federal governments controls on illegal immigrants.

R8: This house believes that Latin American states should provide extensive material support for a military coup against the Venezualan government.

R9: This house believes that the European Union should fund satirical publications in its member states that target far-right pol. parties.

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ESL:

QF: This house believes that Western States should fund the spread of atheism in Iraq through provision of education, health care and welfare.

SF: This house regrets the safe space movements attempts to significantly limit speech on university campuses.
Factsheet: The growing safe space movement has used both social pressure and direct action to achieve its aims.These include, but are not limited to: banning certain speakers, and limiting exposure to controversial and potentially triggering topics.

F: This house believes that western states should support breakaway regions in former Sovjet states (e.g. East Ukraine l South Ossetia) joining the Russian federation conditional on holding free and fair referenda.

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Open:

PDQ: This house supports BRICS* countries creating alternatives to the current international economic institutions (i.e. the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization).

*Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)

QF: This house would require the economic policies of political parties to be approved by an independent panel of experts before being used in campaigns.

SF: This house supports Iran’s extension of the Sharia principle of „an eye for an eye“ to the victims of acid attacks.
Factsheet: Recently there has 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 attacker by putting acid in their eye(s).)

F: This house would nationalize and provide public access to the Metadata being gathered by online multinational companies.

Factsheet: Metadata is anonymized data about users’ activities e.g. locations, demographics, searches, and consumers’ preferences.

 

lok./jm.