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World 2Oo5
THEY debated, they listened, they learned and at the end of the ninth day they returned to their home nations with better knowledge and experience on debating at an international level. The Worlds Debating Championship (WORLDS) is the platform where the worlds best debaters meet. These clashes would enthrall any spectator and keep them glued to their seats till the last moment of each debating round.
The WORLDS is a very old name in the history of debating and this year marked the silver jubilee for this competition. Malaysia hosted this prestigious event from 27th December 2004 to 5th January 2005 for the first time and also this, being the third time that WORLDS came to Asia. This was also the largest international student event that Malaysia has ever organized and the Multimedia University in Cyberjaya was the venue while Telecom was the chief sponsor of this memorable event
The debates were conducted in British Parliamentary and the participants were limited only to those pursuing tertiary education. There were 4 teams in each debate, 2 of which represented the government bench while the other 2 represented the opposition. Each team consisted of 2 persons, and they were only given 15 minutes to prepare once the motion was released. There were 9 preliminary rounds in which 312 teams from England, USA, South Korea, China, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Scotland, Wales, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Canada, Malaysia, Australia, Germany and Holland took part After the preliminary rounds only the first 32 teams
weri^allowed to participate in the rest of the competition. Eventually in the finals there were four teams - Hart House, Ottawa Law, Oxford and Cambridge and amongst them Ottawa law stood out as the champion of the Telecom Mataysia-MMU WORLDS 2005.
Naturally a tournament called the Worlds Universities Debating Championship is supposed to be largely focused on debating but that was not the case in MMU 2005. In the first two days the participants spent most of their time attending social functions along with some briefing session regarding the event and fulfilled all the formalities of their registration process. The preliminary rounds were conducted on the 3rd, 4th and 5th day and culminated with a huge bash on the night of the 5th day where everyone was merry and had a jolly good time. The first day of 2005 was a free day for the participants and most of them spent their time on the streets of Kuala Lumpur and discovered the amazing beauties of Malaysia.
This was the biggest WORLDS ever with about 312 teams and 933 participants - a phenomenal number. Three of the top universities from our very own Bangladesh took part. Independent University (IUB), IBA and North South University all did Bangladesh proud upholding the image of our nation amongst some of the biggest names in debating. IBA and IUB both sent two teams while North South University sent in three.
The IBA A team which comprised of one Tarek Abdullah Al Monim and Irshad Rahman did our nation proud by finishing 168 by accumulating
13 points. On the way they beat some top teams with Monash Univeristy amongst their biggest scalps. Individually, Tarek Abdullah scored the highest points ever for a Bangladeshi. He accumulated 658 points and finished 296th amongst all speakers. The IBA B team, which was made up of Nafees Anwar and Ruhaini Fatema Islam also performed satisfactorily. What made ISA's achievement even more deserving of mention was the fact that all the students involved sponsored themselves in comparison to the other debaters whose cost was borne by the respective universities.
IUB sent in two teams as welt. IUB A included Azim Ahmad and Nazia Tareq while IUB B had Md. Habibur Rahman and Rubayat Khan. Both teams performed remarkably well and scored 13 points each, thereby slotting into the 189th and 190th spots.
North South University (NSU) had three teams. Team A was made up of Asif Newaz and Junaed Rabbani. Team B comprised Tanver Haroon and Omar Farooq while Team C had Fariha Sarawat and Nader Rahman in its books. AU teams turned in thoroughly competent performances but Team C stood out with an excellent performance. They finished 201th with 12 points but amassed a total score of 1288 on the way which was second only to that of the IBA A team. On the way they also defeated Glasgow B, who are four time debate champions, earning a feather in their cap. North South Cs speaker Fariha Sarawat also finished as the second highest Bangladeshi scorer behind Tareq Abdullah with 651 points.
We at the RS managed to catch up with Tareq Abdullah and he had a lot to relate to us. He thought that it had been a lovely experience for himself and his teammates and he was satisfied with their overaU performance. He also returned, reassured of his belief that Bangladeshi students could compete and even beat students from developed countries even though they had far fewer opportunities.
He feels that WORLDS is an ideal platform to make inter university liaisons and develop a sense of professionalism.
Tareq feels that WORLDS provides a great opportunity to broaden ones perspectives and since people from all over the world are present, it gives a feeling of communal harmony as well.
He did feel however that there were some instances of mismanagement and one instance of outright racism, that too from a judge, which appalled him to no ends. He hopes that such things should be avoided in the future to uphold the image of WORLDS.
Before we end, we should spare time to mention all those who took part in the competition.
They all did a commendable job and made their nation proud by just participating and competing. After all, it is about competing. Winning is thoroughly secondary. Weare proud of you.
Our utmost thanks goes out to Sabin Rahman, who did a commendable job getting us the required views from Tareq Abdullah. Without her this article could never have been assembled or completed.
By Quazi Zulquarnain Islam and Sudipto Bari