Source: http://rebecca-ow.blogspot.com/
When I wake up on a mundane weekday, my first thought would be, should I wake up or not to work? Still struggling to actually lug myself out of my royal chamber, I already had a conversation with myself and this is what the academicians call an intrapersonal communication. I believe the first man on earth had this very communion within him long before the existence of any symbols or language. When God finally decided to create the woman to end his misery of talking to himself everyday, this is where the revolution of interpersonal communication happened. Desperate and longing to make contact, he must have reasoned, rationalized and finally made the decision to greet his new friend. The fact that he approached her with shaky knees and merely an utterance of sound upon gazing her beauty up-close, had instituted the very art of communication.
Art has always been associated to music, melody, instruments, drawings, sculptures, poetry, movements and dance. If you think about this carefully, before Strauss or Mozart could compose a 20 page classical piece, they must have thought, let’s start with the violin playing in the key of C major. After the violin solo, let’s throw in the piano to accompany, change the key in the chorus with full percussions playing and let’s end the symphony on high notes. All musicians playing their hearts and souls out to give the audience goose bumps with lasting impressions of how they felt that night when the last note ended. As you can see here, within the creation of a master piece, there is another form of art taking place first. The art of structuring, rationalizing, convincing, expressing and reasoning to craft a piece so powerful, so intriguing, so beautiful and so lasting that their works are now immortalized in the music faculty. The art within art that I am trying to picture here is the art of expressing our thoughts and emotions. Many see that it is best to express our true feelings through color pencils, music sheets, lines that rhyme and resonance but they forget that the most powerful tool, the tongue.
Speaking your mind is the most sincere way of communication. No grand piano to accompany your words, no melody to make your lines sound nicer or using words so deep that people argue through centuries what it actually means or hide the gist of your message in a drawing that’s heavily secured in the museum and everyone has a different story to tell about it. The only problem with speaking is that not everyone knows how to do it the right way. A speech or even normal conversation has an introduction, points, examples, an ending and a conclusion just exactly how Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 was written. Everyone thinks that this is a very easy task. Just talk. Just speak. Just say. Just tell. Just write. Just read the text. Yes, talk is cheap but not in the debating world. Every word counts. Every sentence matters.
Debating is viewed as just a curricular activity and what you would do to escape the other societies that require you to work or sweat. Well, how hard can it be to just stand up and speak, right? Try this. Speak for 7 minutes on the spot about: RENDITION HAS NO PLACE IN A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT or easier, WE SHOULD DO AWAY WITH STATUTORY RAPE LAW (Don’t cheat. Do not write down any points on a piece of paper or go to the internet). Unless you are or was a debater, public speaker or an experienced speaker, I am sure it can be quite a tricky task. Debate is more than cheap talks or throwing chairs across the hall when we get upset with our opposition or calling each other names like kids in first grade or deliver a 5 page prepared text. Debate is all about structure, commitment, logic, immediate responds, thinking on the spot, persuading and convincing. The objective of debating is to deliver a speech with passion, sincerity, conviction, confidence and poise to impress the judges as well as the audience to favor your arguments. It is the art of persuasion and an acquired skill.
It is sad that many graduates nowadays are not able to communicate in an acceptable manner. There are many complaints everywhere that sometimes employees cannot even effectively deliver an oral report, concisely write a report of their business trip, making a good impression during a job interview, answering the question accurately or think on the spot for alternatives. If you are a boss with hundreds or thousands of employees under your command, you would definitely know what kind of picture I am trying to paint here. If you are a teacher/lecturer, you would also agree with me. I am not trying to brag but this are the exact situations debaters are put through in every practice and tournament. Debaters are trained to be independent, confident, poised, structured, argumentative in a persuasive manner and convincing in every way which include maintaining good eye contact, gestures and body language with your listeners. You have to do all this at the same time trying to smile once in a while, tear down your opponents with smart replies to their arguments, hoping your team will win and ignoring butterflies in your stomach if you’re speaking in the finals of World Universities Debating Championship. If you still don’t think debating is an art, you can stop reading now.
Debates give a solid foundation and pave roads into many areas after graduation. In any faculty, subject, job, business negotiation, hostage negotiation, political agenda, academic or industry, everyone is expected to deliver, communicate, think, make decisions, draw logic statements, impress the customers/bosses, defend your work and rationalize every choice. This soft skill can never be imparted in an individual overnight in any way unless trained and cultivated through activities such as debating or public speaking. In my opinion, industries including businesses, finances, services, firms, medias and others should be made compulsory to support such activities because not only they would giving back to the society but encouraging leaders and graduates with excellent communication skills, whom will subsequently contribute back to the country and economy.
Now that I have given you a light introduction on the history of communication, why communication is the mother of all other forms of art, the problem with effective communication, how debate is an art of persuasion, how debate can help improve qualities of graduates and why industries should support such activities, we go to the last bit of my very own symphony, the conclusion and I’ll try to convince the public and industries to support WUPID (P/S: If you’d notice, I structured my article in a way it has a nice little flow and one paragraph leads to the next point).
The CIMB Group World Universities Peace Invitational Debates (WUPID) is a tournament organized by H&G Strategic Communications Sdn Bhd that will be happening in Kuala Lumpur in the month of December. WUPID is where only the Top 30 debating universities are invited and this would mean that only creams of the crop are invited. Some examples of institution that will be attending event : Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Monash, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, International Christian University (Japan), Multimedia University (Malaysia), University of Chulalongkorn (Thailand) and Ateneo de Manila (Philippines). I bet there is no other better avenue or place to witness the world’s best speakers in action, outdoing each other to clinch the Champion Title. The tournament would not only promote debating amongst university students but encouraging the public to embrace the skill to communicate effectively. This is an event that encourages the meeting of great minds, exchange of ideas, friendship beyond cultural differences, university students talking about world issues and the making of future leaders. Supporting such a prestigious and beneficial tournament would be good for the society and sends a strong message to everyone that we take good communication seriously.
As a conclusion, debating is not only a fad or an activity you do for a pass in university curricular requirement. You must be thinking right now, should I check out this event or maybe attend it or ask someone about it or should I believe this random girl writing this article. Any how, you already rationalized and debated with yourself. Debating is definitely a way of life and if you take a moment to think about it, I am sure you will realize that we are all born to debate (Remember, when your mom said no but you insisted that you wanted the candy before dinner anyways?). The only difference with our university debating is that we take it up a notch to talk about world issues, creatively compose our speech and confidently express our thoughts while convincingly persuade our audience. Debating is definitely an art of communication in every possible way and a skill that needs to be encouraged in the society. Cheers.
Written by Rebecca of University Malaya.
Information regarding CIMB WUPID can be acquired here.
