Cricket, obviously, is a monumentally dull spectator sport. And so is golf, and so is snooker. But the dullest, most excruciating sport of them all - and I’ll brook no argument on this is - is yesterday’s Malaysia’s first political debate.
At nine o’clock on Tuesday evening, many Malaysians were infront of their television set watching anxiously for an event that none would imagine would ever happen - a debate between Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the Minister of Information on national TV. See the first out eight clips below:
Now i’m sorry but how, in the name of Zeus’s butthole, can anyone be interested to watch more political debates after this - assuming there will be more of course. You had one ambitious dude throwing jargons and technicalities that more than half of the viewers at home wouldn’t probably comprehend - given the limited time for any detailed explaination, and another silly daft that has a hibiscus for a brain. The debate was so uninspiring that if it was an equivalent of a typhoon, it wouldn’t be able to remove the roof.
I was expecting something more TV-worthy. More wit, sarcasm and intelligent anecdotes in the debate. I wanted to see more drama and action. The type that would blow your underwear clean til next week and take the roof of your heads. And because you can’t see anything of the sort yesterday, watching political debates in Malaysia again is jolly tricky.
It takes a lot of practice to watch something like yesterday night. And to be fair, if you concentrate and as attentive as I am, it could at least blow your mind clean in half - just half. But at the end, you’ll be aware somehow that it’s a big, ugly, cobbled-together con trick with no fun.
Sure, yesterday’s debate was monumental and historic. But I’m afraid it failed to win something more important. Heart.
It has always been generally accepted that debating is a man’s sport. Really?
The speaker scores at last week’s Ateneo Australs certainly illustrated the absolute opposite - the top 5 best speakers were dominated by women. There were other things too. Naomi Oreb won the best speaker in the grand finals and the championship was won by a team where 2 out 3 were female debaters (Naomi Oreb and Julia Bowes).
Judging from the domination of female speakers at the 2008 Ateneo Australs and previous years, can we any longer perceive debating, at least in Australs anyway, a male dominated sport? Does the domination of female speakers illustrates that AA is a blatant unfairness and inequal treatment which has now flipped the table and made the sad male participants in a disadvantage?
Plainly, there are bound to be a few drawbacks with the introduction of AA in Australs. And sure enough there are. You may have seen ‘The Fly 2′ in which a scientist attempts to teleport a dog. In one of the most gruesome scenes I’ve seen in a film, it arrives at it’s destination completely inside out. Well the AA is sort of uglier than that.
Generally, men and women have a very distinct communication orientation or style. This difference can be measured (McCroskey), and in all if not in many instances shown glaring differences which apparently correlates strongly along the line of gender. Studies have shown that women in general are more responsive oriented in comparison to men which are notoriously recognized as assertive communicators.
The crucial question that needs to be addressed first, in order to answer whether is debating still very much a male dominated sport - even with AA, is do female debaters retain their general style of communicating (responsiveness) or are the adopting a style or orientation which is assertive (the male voice)? If female debaters still ’sounds’ like a male debater, I don’t think AA has yet fulfilled its true feministic goal. Hence, AA should be extended by not just encouraging female debaters but more importantly female adjudicators as well - it is them after all that determines who prevails.
So, why extend AA to encourage the participation of more female judges? Well, typically what happens in a persuasive context, the judge would naturally favour the speech from a speaker that shares the same type of communication orientation, even though the other speakers share same matter.
Having said so, are male debaters in Australs in a disadvantage - with the introduction of AA? Not at all. AA simply gives the female populous in Australasian universities significant opportunities and encouragement to become a debater.
May be they end up conditioned or trained to acquire the communication orientation of a man. Or maybe, just maybe, the female debaters that joins or remain in the debating circle are assertive communicators already. Whatever the consequences or reasons are, AA has done a heck of a good deal to the Australs debating fraternity: something thats not absolutely good, but good enough.
Samy Vellu. Very much the embodiment of twenty-century man. Civilized, urbane, well read and quick-witted. Yet underneath the polish veneer of sophistication, pulsates the brain of a hibiscus. Yup … as of yesterday, underneath that expensive hairdo, Samy is no different from the wanker-defender of Wimbeldon turn actor - Vinny Jones, or your dog, or even the brontosaurus.
Yesterday he rolled up at the dinner he hosted for his branch chairmen with a disdainful sneer that makes him such a terrifying adversary for the likes of Harith Iskandar. By right he should have hated every moment of it. After all, he used to be one of the most respectable and respected men in Malaysian politics. But yesterday, his random uncultured, uncouth and yobbish conduct, all dolled up in a clashing red batik squeezed perfectly into a noisy, pointless bee of a thing.
So … what do we readers or spectators get out of it? Hell of a good laugh. Eventhough Samy is cold, uncomfortable and a little bit dangerous the fiasco yesterday certainly sent a shiver of euphoria up anyone’s laughing nerve.
Next time you see Samy, then, having a ding-dong at something, consider this: his outer human brain is thinking of an intelligent response, but his inner hibiscus brain is thinking, “Where’s the sun?”
Just got back from Manila for the Ateneo Australs. And as usual, news and updates can be sourced from dear old Colm Flynn here.
First and foremost, I would like to convey my warmest thanks to the org comm (Ateneo Debate Society) for hosting a fabulous tourney and allowing WUPID to be a part of such a grand event.
The tournament was great. The tabs was seamless and there were no delays that I could recall. The socials were loads of fun - the opening ceremony was my personal favourite. The test debate was one of the few better ones that I’ve seen so far. And as a whole, the hospitality of the org comm was commendable.
The ESL category finals was Universitas Indonesia (UI) versus International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). I came a bit late so was not really sure what the motion was - the arguments however was somewhat related to subsidies on petrol. IIUM won the ESL and the best ESL speaker was awarded to Miranda Anwar of UI.
Other than the hardworking org comm from Ateneo - who organized a fantastic tourney and had a team which reached all the way to the semis, one of the most successful participants in this year’s Australs is Naomi Oreb from Sydney (picture above) - she scooped the overall best speaker award, best speaker in the finals and won the Australs together with Julia Bowes and Steve Hind. Congratulation to all teams and hope to see you all at CIMB WUPID 2008 this December.
The entry below is NOT an official write up from Malaysian Artiste For Unity (MAFU).
The Message: Racial Unity
It’s taboo but it’s true. And just because your naked eye does not have the capacity to see it around you … believe me … it’s THERE … silently growing to vest you the biggest ‘fuck you!’ you’ve ever received.
I ain’t gonna be a silly wanker and deny it’s very existance, because fuck me … the sooner I acknowledge it the sooner I’ll do something constructive about it. Rather than becoming a lame duck denying the truth, cloaking the truth or sweeping the truth under the carpet until it all piles up into a fucking giant sand dune waiting to swallow me.
The Video: Here In My Home
To me … the video concentrates and thrives on the notion of sincerity - via the way the vid was shot, the lyrics and the whole personality gig, which makes the video utterly special and appealling. No gimmick … sincerely unity.
… And WUPID?
WUPID is and will always champion causes that leads as well as sustains peace. We bow to the many people who have made the MAFU project a reality and pray that it will conceive a more united world, if not Malaysia.
