Report: UTMARA Wins The Great Serdang Debate 2011

Posted on June 2, 2011

1


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Monday, May 30, 2011: UTMARA won against NUS at the grand finals of the Great Serdang Debate Championship 2011. The motion debated was that postcolonial states should not be members of organisations based on a common colonial heritage founded by their former colonial masters.

From the FB note of Suthen Thomas (Chief Adjudicator):

These are the motions that Sharmila Parmanand, Sabrina Zaini and myself used for the recently concluded Great Serdang Debate (GSD) 2011 in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The GSD was run in the AustralAsian-format.

Round 1: Malaysia

  • That poorer nations should reject the storage and/or processing of hazardous materials on their soil by richer nations
  • That we would impose English as the common medium of instruction in all schools
  • That we would give the profits from mineral resources exclusively to the local states/provinces from which they are extracted

Round 2: Aid

  • That we would dispense humanitarian aid through established religious organisations in recipient states
  • That we would reject microcredit schemes targeted exclusively at women
  • That first world nations would increase immigration quotas for labour migrants from target countries instead of giving them development aid

Round 3: The Kiddies

  • That we would require parents who seek to have biological children to meet the same criteria as those who seek to adopt children
  • That schools should actively erase gender differences among their students
  • That online gaming sites should restrict the number hours minors can access their services

Round 4: Military

  • That we should not punish high-ranking military officials who are publicly critical of the decisions of elected politicians
  • That we would not allow retired high-ranking military officials to run for public office
  • That we would ban military recruitment campaigns targeted at low-income groups

Round 5: Business

  • That we would impose progressive taxation on corporations
  • That civil society groups should push for greater government regulation of corporations instead of supporting voluntary corporate social responsibility practices by those corporations
  • That it is legitimate for companies to monitor their employees’ Internet usage on their IT infrastructure

Quarter-finals: Gender

  • That the feminist movement would condemn women that have reached the highest levels of politics or the corporate ladder yet done little for women in their sphere of influence
  • That the feminist movement should reject and combat religion instead of attempting to reform it from within
  • That we would abolish Ladies’ Nights in bars

Semi-finals: International affairs

  • That the U.S. should sign a non-aggression treaty with North Korea without pre-conditions
  • That NATO should assasinate Gaddafi
  • That the Mexican state should tolerate drug cartels instead of waging an all-out war against them at the United States’ behest

Finals: New World Order

  • That the United States should deprioritise maintaining its position as the most dominant global power
  • That we would recognise a universal right to secession
  • That postcolonial states should not be members of organisations based on a common colonial heritage founded by their former colonial masters
Posted in: Asia Pacific, Debate, Education, Malaysia, News, Report, School, University