HIGH SCHOOL DEBATES ARE WHAT MAKE OUR PARLIAMENTARIANS By Pablo Yagayo Politics is sometimes like a poisoned mushroom. You can’t tell if it’s the real thing until it’s too late. The deputy speaker of parliament and Omoro county member of parliament Rt Hon Jacob Oulanyah is on record for having proposed that parties submit names of MPs who would be selected to speak to the speaker beforehand to address the poor quality of debate in the House. He sensed there was something not right but it was too late for the Parliament’s Business committee to approve it. He has since stopped reading the Hansard, the official record of Parliament proceedings. This reminded me of high school debates. They always selected the best debaters and fronted them as either opposers or proposers. The rest would be there to supplement, compliment, disagree or raise point of order. The motion would be tabled and the chairman would immediately call for presentations from the different parties. Looking back, the motions seemed childish but the passion, emotion, and commitment invested in research was mind- blowing. The debaters would quote all kinds of scholars, thinkers and philanthropists, name it, to prove a point. Even if they were debating something as simple as ‘City life is better than village life’, you would be assured to hear quotes from Shakespeare, Muhammad Ali or Napoleon Bonaparte. I remember attending a high school debate where the motion was ‘Pocket money; a cause of less concentration in class.” I was wowed by the students’ knowledge of the dictionary. They were using words that you won’t hear anywhere, even in movies. One of the speakers from the proposers argued: “Pocket money causes less concentration in class because money constructs an agglutinative atmosphere in your mind that might end up being mnemonic to your friends.” He was given a standing ovation by those who agreed with him. I later asked him after the debate what he meant by ‘agglutinative atmosphere’ and ‘being mnemonic.’ He confessed to me that he had no idea but he had to confuse the opponents in order to win. “If you can’t convince them, confuse them,” he said. The opposers later found out that his deliberations didn’t make sense but it was too late to overturn their defeat. I was privileged to attend an inter-secondary school debate competition recently. I was extremely excited because it had been ages since I had last been to one. The motion was “The private sector is better than the public sector.” All the speakers put up a spirited fight to defend their stand until one speaker obsessed with The Ebonies’ plays took the floor. She put together the titles of most of their plays in one sentence in defence of the private sector. “The public sector is such an obnoxious abomination that has graduated into an excruciating conundrum, creating an inextricable dilemma that has created agony and ecstasy in this country,” she said. Whether what she said made sense or not, she was declared the best debater of the day. These are our future parliamentarians, right honourable deputy speaker, sir!
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 21:45:00 +0000
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