Of Batman and the Transatlantic Alliance: IUB students win international debating tournament

Ian Marshall and Attiya Noon, both IUB students and members of the IUB Debating Society, won the Central and Eastern European Debating Tournament from March 7th to 9th in Berlin.

[ Mar 12, 2003]  The Championship, organized by the Berlin Debating Union and the Verband der Debattierclubs an Hochschulen, was sponsored by Die Zeit. The »battle of words« was conducted in the British Parliamentary Style between 40 debating teams with participants coming from 16 European countries, including Germany, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Belarus, Ukraine, and others. The topics revolved around current international affairs, primarily those concerned with European issues such as: the Iraq crisis as a threat to the transatlantic alliance between Europe and the US, Turkey’s potential entry into the EU and the EU-wide legalization of euthanasia. In addition to spontaneity and the presentation of a systematic, convincing political argument the debaters also needed a good sense of humor, as they had to discuss the pros and cons of Batman and Superman founding a family.

The final debate dealt with the question of whether Europe should have Berlin as its single capital or not. The IUB team, Noon and Marshall, won this debate by beating the other finalists from the University of Munster, the University of Bonn, and the American University of Bulgaria. They had qualified themselves for the finals by scoring the first position in four out of five debates in three qualifying rounds and two preliminary finals, each debate involving four teams of two debaters each.

Attiya Noon is the president of the IUB Debating Society. She is a first year history student and comes from Pakistan. Ian Marshall is Australian and studies Biochemical Engineering in his first year.

Debating Debating is a British invention that has mostly stayed within the British Commonwealth and English-speaking world (in Australia, Pakistan, and USA for example). In recent years it's been gradually gaining popularity in continental Europe, especially in the Netherlands, Germany, and many Eastern European countries.

IUB Debating Society • founded at the beginning of the aca- demic year 2002-2003 • member of the Verband der Debat- tierclubs an Hochschulen e. V. (VDCH) since November 2002 • Debating style: British Parliamentary Style that models the debating protocol of the British parliament • Number of current members: 18 • Society meetings for debate: once every 2-3 weeks • For further information contact Attiya Noon, President of the IUB Debating Society (a.noon@iu-bremen.de)