“This House believes that any self-respecting university town should have a debate society.” In style with British debating, as exemplified in this quote, Lund University’s own debating society will be hosting a tournament this weekend. Grand Finals will be taking place on Sunday afternoon at Kungshuset.
The tournament will be a unique opportunity for Lund, and even Sweden on the whole, according to organizer and active Lund Debate Society, LDS, member Hampus Holmer.
He contends that Sweden does not hold active debate to the same level that English-speaking countries such as England and Australia do.
“Swedish debate tends to be very one-sided, almost like two walls standing against each other,” explains Holmer. To some degree, “The Swedish media has been trained to be on one side.”
The weekend kick-off
The Lund Open will be taking place during all of Saturday and Sunday. The debates will be based on randomized current events picked out from the British weekly news magazine The Economist. The debating format will strictly be British Parliamentary Debate, each session consisting of four speakers and two opposing sides.
Registered members of the tournament are due to arrive Friday night, and will kick off debates tomorrow morning.
Participating schools are generally coming from other countries, such as Norway, Finland and Germany. Other competing Swedish schools include Handelshögskolan and KTH from Stockholm. Judges from Trinity College and Cambridge College from Ireland and the UK will be present.
The Grand Finals with the leading four teams, will take place at Kungshuset, near the Lund Cathedral, open to all interested.
Only in English
One unique aspect of LDS is their intention to completely exclude debate in the Swedish language. Initially, Hampus Holmer and others anticipated a drop in interest from Swedish students because of this.
However, all interested students seem to think that debate in English is more enriching.
“Many of our Swedish debaters enjoy the diverse environment that English-spoken debate provides them with and generally want to keep it that way,” says Holmer.
Read everything about the tournament Monday here on Lundagard.net.
