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South African school debating team makes world finals Katharine Child, The Times, Johannesburg, 14 August, 2014 For only the second time, the South African School debating team has qualified for the finals of the World School's Debating Championship. The final is taking place at the regional headquarters of the United Nations in Bangkok at noon, South African time, today. Member Kate Dewey said: "We hope to be the first African team to take home the trophy!" The team will face England. Advocate Steven Budlender, who coached the South African school debating teams in 1999 and 2000, called the feat "amazing". Josh Broomberg at debating tournament.jpg The five-person team has reached the finals, even as two of their members and their coach have faced hate speech, emails accusing them of malice and suggestions they should convert from Judaism to Islam. Last week, team coach Saul Musker and two members, Joshua Broomberg and Sam Musker, posted a photo on Facebook of themselves wearing Palestinian scarves, known as Keffiyehs. The photo was taken to show solidarity with the civilians losing their lives in Gaza. The trio, all Jewish, angered many Jews in South Africa and across the world. Yesterday, the furore even made headlines in Britain on the BBC webpage. Despite the saga, the team beat Canada in the semi-final. They debated the topic: "Drone strikes are a legitimate tool of foreign policy". Getting to the final showed: "The years of hard work have been worth it," according to member Saadiyah Mayet. The debate will be live-streamed online at ustream.tv, from a page titled "World Debate Live" at noon, South African time. It can be viewed here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/world-debate-live Budlender explained: " I think what you have to appreciate is that the World School's Debating competition is not a Mickey Mouse competition". "This is would have taken extremely serious preparation for months and months." The South Africans would have faced exceptionally skilled teams who all have a very wide general knowledge, he said. Debaters need to be experts on international legal, social and economic issues. Budlender explained that in most rounds, the teams are usually only given topics an hour in advance. Former South African debaters include Budlender, Power FM talk show host Eusebius McKaiser and Business Day journalist Stuart Theobald. Budlender explained: It's not just good speaking skills that are needed. Debaters need to be excellent at critical thinking and thinking very fast. Debaters can be interrupted by an opposing team member, forcing the speaker to immediately stop what they are arguing and give a convincing answer to a question within seconds. Coach Musker said: "We are immensely proud of the team for staying strong despite the enormous pressure they were under, and for showing such strength and resilience throughout the tournament". In the final, South Africa will be proposing the motion "This house believes that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations political union is an impossible dream". From: http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2014/08/14/south-african-school-debating-te am-makes-world-finals -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
