DEMOS has – together with Rhetorica Maastricht - organized another debate for you, this time on the Kony2012 awareness campaign:

Kony 2012: powerful advocacy or propaganda?

Opinions about the Kony 2012 campaign vary widely.

*Die Zeit: “This hype is helping the wrong people. This campaign does not bring any advantages for the Ugandan people.”

*Le Monde: “Kony 2012: Marketing of emotions”

*New York Times: “A video posted online this month, “Kony 2012,” which is trying to call attention to the brutality of the Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and his penchant for kidnapping and killing children, has turned the eyes of more than 100 million people to this developing, landlocked country.”

*The Guardian: “Kony 2012: shock, outrage and a hint of scepticism as UK pupils react to film”

*Newsvision: “Mass-marketing Kony will not change the killer's fate”

See the movie: http://www.kony2012.com/

Where? Keizer Karelplein 19
When? Coming Friday (30th of March), 4-6 pm
After-debate drink @ KIWI

Do you know your arguments?
We look forward to seeing you on Friday!

For the workshop this monday we make things more interesting with a pre-released motion:

THW assassinate Bashar al-Assad

Some tips on how to prep for the motion:

step 1: start reading about the topic. The goal of this is to get an idea of possible clashes of the debate, not to accumulate a lot of facts. Good resources to use are Wikipedia (for specific things you don't know), the Economist, The Guardian, Debatepedia (there is a debate on the assassination of a dictator on it; please do not rely on the arguments given there, but use them to get ideas, and the additional sources for more information)

step 2: when you have an idea of what the issues in the debate are, try to look at what each side has to proof in order to win the debate

step 3: based on your found burdens of proof, think of arguments

step 4: think of what kind of facts do you need to support your arguments (similar cases, statistics, examples etc.). Try to find these (do NOT make them up ;) )

step 5: develop you arguments with a rational, illustration and normative value

step 1 is the absolute minimum you should have done before the debate, in order not to make a fool of yourself; an hour of two over the course of this week should already make a difference. Step 2-3 are needed if you want to give a decent speech. Step 5 is if you are bored, and have time left over.

Hope to see you all this Monday!

Every Monday we have workshops for anyone interested, you don't have to have any experience with debating to gain from our workshops where we train you both in theory and practice how to improve your debating skills!

Check out the events for more info on every week's training session!

Next week we have both a Debate work-shop and our successful Bar Debate is coming back!

Don't miss out on this opportunity to debate motions not fit for anywhere else but in the bar. Bring your friends and expect an evening of fun bantering and arguing to win those free drinks!