DEBATING, ARENA TO BEST MAKE USE OF MY QUALITIES

By Muhammad Donny Eryastha
(Age 19, Indonesia)

By the time of writing this essay, I'm acting as deputy chief adjudicator for Indonesian School Debating Championship, a national scale debating competition for high school students to select Indonesian delegates for World School Debating Championship. This is the same competition that I joined for years ago. Ever since, the world of competitive debating has become an arena for me to contribute in the process of building democracy in my country, proliferating the habit of respecting other's opinion among youth, creating society that is less prejudicial and discriminatory, making a peaceful world. This is the arena in which I could best make use of my positive attributes and by the same time it teaches me the merits of debating.

If I were asked what my positive attributes are, the most tangible answer would be my hard work ethos. I truly believe that the outcome that one will get is positively correlated with the effort that one exerts. Aside from that, I must say that I'm an optimistic person. I believe that there's always hope for better future, for I believe that most of the time external factors don't really contribute to the unfortunate events that we experienced. Right now I'm studying at the leading university in Indonesia, but before I got accepted there, by three other universities have turned me down. Before I became the finalist of National Biology Olympiad, I've failed many times in selections for Physics Olympiad. And it took me two times joining national selection before I was selected as one of first Indonesian delegates for World School Debating Championship.

Debate has taught me a lot of positive values. As I'm involved in more in competitive debating as a debater, I learned that it's more than competition of arguing and public speaking. The philosophy of debate is there are always at least two sides of a story. In Indonesia, to have different opinion is taboo. The country has been ruled by New Order regime for 32 years. During that period the press has been oppressed, dissidents have been silenced, and the freedom of speech has been undermined. After the reform in 1998, there has been a period of chaos and riots. There has been anarchism and conflicts between ethnic groups. The people have been silenced for two long and they channel their euphoria in many ways including using violence. This is the time when competitive debating being introduced in Indonesia. In debate, a team would be designated a position to argue supporting or opposing a motion. The motions range from ‘That We Would Impose Democracy' to ‘That We Would Recognize Gay Priest'. You cannot simply say that your opinion is the most correct one and other's is wrong just because you believe so or that's what you've been told. You learn to respect other's opinion. You also learn to accept diversities, to resolve disagreement by dialogues and reasoning, not to say that different groups are wrong simply because their different. These values of respecting other's opinion, to resolve disagreement by reasoning, to diminish prejudice, are the attributes that I learned from debating and what I believe is what is needed in Indonesia.

I believe that the best way to make use of my positive attributes is by using them in the effort of contributing to my surrounding community. I believe that if I work hard in the effort of proliferating debating in Indonesia, I could spread the merits of debating among youth in the country. I've been involved in various activities. As internal director of debating society in my university I coordinate regular practices in which participants can discuss different issues and practice actual debate. Together with my friends at the debating society, I've held debating seminars, training and competition that involved varsity and high school students. I can see that now more young people are accustomed with debating and it is becoming more popular in the country. I believe that more people will learn the positive attributes of debating and the country could become a better place. I believe that this is the best way to make use my positive attributes and by doing that I could also learn more to be a better self.