Debating society report

The year started with Asad Javed taking over the charge of the prestigious MIDS from asad Khalid. There was just one holy commandment to follow: maintain and improve Jt’s excellent reputation in debates. And sure enough the president along with the dedicated society members defended their reputation with religious devotion. The kick-off event was the LUMS Olympiad university style debating. Seasoned speaker Ibrahim Shujaat Rabbani paired up with the prodigal new comer Saim Ejaz to battle veteran teams from all over the country. Although young and relatively inexperienced, the duo fought with Olympian vigor, ending up in the semi-finals and leaving the crowd in awe by their speaking skills. Then came the refractory phase where most of the original team members got busy in exams and a very important competition, the UET all Pakistan bilingual parliamentary, was lurking around the corner. Determined not to waste any event, the president decided to send in a team of new comers to familiarize them with the professional debating world. The team hence made comprised of Ali Akram Hayat, who had previously been an important resource person for the school team, and Azfar Ahmad Farooqi. Again the odds were against us as the competition was with more experienced teams. But once again the boys kept the prestige of Jt intact. The team made it into top sixteen from all over the country and both the speakers were nominated for best speakers of the tournament. This encouraging start provided the debaters with a morale boost. Determination to bring home some glory was further intensified. So to maintain the good pace, Azfar was sent to participate in the Saint Mary’s Academy Model United Nations in Rawalpindi. Three days of cut throat competition with enthusiasts from all the well known schools resulted in shaping the event into yet another learning opportunity. Azfar bagged an honorary mention representing PLO in the counter terrorism committee, bringing home the accolade and with it loads of valuable experience. And so the debating society geared up to enter the second phase of the race to glory.
This began with the first preparatory event of the U-19 circuit: Resource Academia challenge cup. Here the main school team comprised of the more experienced members of the society: Ibrahim Rabbani, Asad khan, Mustafa khan, mohammed wiqar and ali akram. Competing against well known rivals aitchison and 1A1, the school team kept its own and nudged its way to the quarter finals. The ace speaker, Ibrahim, got nominated for best speaker of the tournament. After this the school team flew off to Karachi for an even more exhilarating battle at the Karachi Grammar cup. This time the team composition was altered as per the opinion of our coaches Nauman Faizi and Ali Javed. President Asad Javed, who being a new comer to the parliamentary format had not yet participated in any parliamentary event was given the opportunity to speak here. Exploiting his chance well, Asad maintained good coordination with team members Ibrahim, Mustafa, Ali Akram and asad khan, to propel Jtites to the top five. This good performance established Asad Javed as another prodigal addition to the team.
With this new momentum, our debaters entered the most hectic month of the calendar year: October. Next up were events that would shape up school teams for the coveted nationals .In addition, Aitchison had taken the initiative of pioneering high school Model united nations in Lahore by organizing ACMUN’09.Our team was invited to pitch their skills against others in a battle of diplomacies. All this had to be taken care of along with managing JT’s own MID cup. So sleeves were rolled up and lots of coffee was brought in as the debating society nose-dived into an adrenaline fueled ride. First came the LGS defense cup. Two teams were sent. Team A comprised of Asad Javed, Asad Khan and Mustafa while team B had Mohammed Wiqar, Omer Farooq and Azfar Ahmad. The face-off began with the preliminaries where unfortunately team A got knocked out after a controversial decision. Team B however managed to knock-out rivals Beaconhouse liberty campus and enter the octofinals of the tournament. Here they were pitched against a more tough cookie : Kabbana. The match was a nail biting close one and by the end JT managed to pull it off with an excellent show of team work and logical reasoning. Hereby Kabbana was knocked out and JT made it into the top eight from over thirty two participating teams. However lady luck wasn’t quite pleased and the team could go no further; losing the next match in quarterfinals.
For any other team, morale would have gone down the drain after coming this close to the cup and then losing but this is LGS JT we are talking about. Our boys aren’t familiar with pessimism and so in no time they were seen gearing up for the ACMUN. Our delegation was assigned Italy to represent and the team comprised of Talha Ejaz, Taimur Butt, Ali ahsan, Haseeb ahmed, Azfar Ahmad and Mahad Naseer. With less than a week to prepare, the boys toiled day and night for this big event. It started with the global village where our team had to represent Italian culture via a stall and our dress-up. This was executed marvelously covering all major aspects of Italian culture; Mahad dressed up as mafia( very Mario Puzo,no?), Talha became the pope( he actually held a communion after this), Ali was the pizza boy, Azfar an artist and Taimur a footballer. However the icing on the cake was Haseeb. Covered from head to toe in white paint and a golden toga, he posed as a statue and did a marvelous job at it. Every single person at the exhibition, including the Principal of Aitchison himself, wanted to have a photograph of them while standing next to haseeb ( guys, get jealous because even girls flocked over to him). This gave the team a boost up for the vicious debating sessions due next day. Here again the boys worked hard for honor and glory. Eventually the team clinched worthy accolades: Azfar was given an honorary mention in DISEC while our global village stall was ranked fifth from over forty competitors, winning critics award for the most creative stall.
With this encouraging performance, the stage was set for JT to host its own Mian Iftikhar-ud-din Debating cup. This year a larger turn up was expected as over the years this championship had earned a good repo. To make sure its dignity was maintained, our boys had to manage the event like no other, taking care of even seemingly negligible issues. This meant over a week of brain-racking hard work in a routine full of chaos, shouting and headache pills. The host team comprised of debating society members coordinating their efforts with the student council. Hence the event kicked off on its traditional time, mid October, with every well known team in the country eyeing the trophy. Defending champions GC were under the lime light. So the show began with preliminaries where the professional teams were seen mirthlessly mutilating the dignity of novice participants. We being the hosts obviously enjoyed it all from a safe distance *wink*. But even more heated battles awaited us as these professionals were pitched against each other in latter rounds. All sorts of topics from practicality of religion to ideas concerning legalization of prostitution were thrown at the participants to give them a real mental workout. Eventually we saw Aitchison, who seemed to be the favorites of the stars this year, face-to-face with LSE in the final round. There was a houseful, literally, to watch the finale. Our very own respected Miss Sonu Rehman had consented to be the chief-guest. After a match that left the audience biting nails anxiously, LSE were declared triumphant and even managed to snatch the best speaker prize. Well I guess stars were a bit off their trajectory on that day. Too bad for aitchison, who had lost this tournament for the third time after making it to the finals.
When the excitement of having organized MIDC so well, and having added some participants on facebook *ahem ahem*, had passed our teams prepared to enter the LACAS sondhi cup. Now this tournament was a very unique one. Firstly it made the only known, till then at least, attempt of fusing declamations and parliamentary by having a “prepared motion round”. The result was a tragedy which has been described as a disaster worth mentioning on BBC. Secondly, on several recorded instances, the persona assigned the duty of judges turned out to be unqualified for this task and went so far as to award 92 marks to a CERTAIN speaker out of the max possible 80. Not surprisingly then, JT didn’t do too well and came home disappointed. Heck even the food wasn’t good enough compared to our own Chinese cuisine. Complete time waste? Well maybe no. At least we enjoyed SOMETHING *evil grin*.
And with this came the month of November. Now was the time when the coveted U-19 nationals was going to take place. The very name, all Pakistan Under-19 nationals debating championship, seemed to have an energizing aura. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that teams work really hard for months, six in JT’s case, to do well in this single event. So it can be imagined how excited and anxious our boys were for this competition. Our coaches Nauman Faizi and Ali Javed had worked equally hard to train the boys for this final test. A week prior to the event, team selection was to take place. Now this is by no means an easy task when you consider the abundance of talented debaters in JT. Veterans like Ibrahim, Mustafa and Asad javed were quickly shortlisted with Ali Akram and Asad Khan following as resource persons to complete the first team. For the second team, Mohammed Wiqar, having served MIDS well in U-17 last year, was an easy choice. Considering their good performances at LGS defense and some friendlies, Omer farooq and Azfar Ahmad were then chosen to accompany him. Both teams were equally energetic and determined. So amidst all the adrenaline, nationals started on November 20th at Aitchison college. Every known school team was present and all eyes were set on the trophy. The tournament opened with a preliminary round where both the teams performed brilliantly. Team B defeated SISA and LGS Islamabad with record breaking margins to ensure that even though they lost to KGS, they still managed to clear the round and be honored with a position amongst the top 16 teams from all over Pakistan. Team A did even better, defeating every single team in the first round including giants KGS and Headstart to get a top slot ranking based on the preliminary round marks. With the first hurdle crossed so well, our boys were optimistic about their chances. However somebody must have bribed the already so poorly reputed Lady luck against us and to produce a scenario of Shakespearian irony, JT’s team A was put against Jt’s team B in the octofinals. Bad? Add to it the fact that it was a knock-out round which meant that only ONE of our teams would make it to the next round. Is it just me, or is there really a stench of jealousy in the air? Anyway our boys prepared to face each other in a heated debate on issues regarding the global warming and ways of dealing with it. Pakistan team coach Sameer Khosa was the judge and the match room was crammed as a great gladiator style battle was being expected. We certainly didn’t disappoint the spectators. From the very first minute, it was a match like no other. Despite being relatively weaker, JT team B had come up with a bafflingly simple yet clever team strategy that cornered their counter parts. If not for their experience and organized approach, team A would have certainly lost the match. They gave a tactful fight to the very last minute and Rabbani’s reply speech left even the rivals applauding his brilliance. In the end, team A was declared victorious with a very narrow margin.
Their happiness was short lived though. Next up were the quarter finals where they were to face a very familiar team and guess what? The judge was a familiar figure too (remember the controversial decision at LGS defense?). It was anticipated that we were heading towards yet another controversy. So with some distracting omens, loads of bad luck and the question of whether or not our parliament was hiding sugar under the tables(quote unquote Rabbani), Jt lost the match with the narrowest possible margin. In the critique following the match, the only flaw we could figure out was that “Rabbani was aggressive” and quite surprisingly one of the opponents was given good marks for possessing this quality. Somebody needs to see the psychiatrist, NOW!
All’s well that ends well. We fell in love with this cliché when the closing ceremony of the tournament took place. All three of team A’s speakers were short-listed for selection in Pakistan’s national debating team and in the ensuing hectic routine, Rabbani managed to nudge its way to the prestigious green coat becoming the youngest ever member. He made us all proud and we hope he does wonders for Pakistan at the World school debates at Qatar this year.
With that, the story seemed to have ended on a bitter-sweet note. But wait! We had just realized that we were truly, madly, deeply in love with debates and our boys simply refused to let go of it. Despite the threatening clouds of exams, JT decided to go for yet another high-profile tournament: LUMUN. Although late for registration, we managed to pull a few strings to get in. Unfortunately however, the strings weren’t good enough to get us any interesting country and we got assigned Vietnam. Dude, it doesn’t even have good food! But to cover up for this loss of SHUGAL, the boys prepared hard to match others at a diplomatic level. Eventually Saim Ejaz(long time no see, buddy?) won an outstanding diplomacy award in UNIFEM.