Debate at Heart of Europe 2013

Heart of Europe is back again, this time for its 10th anniversary, and for this special occasion, over 40 teams from all over our beautiful planet are about to participate at it. As it is customary for the tournament, and also implied in its name, one of the major themes that will be debated there has to be the Europe, particularly its future. That should hopefully be relevant for the participating Europeans and very educational for debaters from anywhere but Europe, just as it happened in the last year‘s finals between Singapore and Canada. The specific European focus in this year’s finals will be on the currency, however, since the motion states that „THBT in the long run there is no hope to save Euro without a federal Europe“. But that is only where the motions for this year's Heart of Europe begin, not end.

Money is also definitely not the only thing worth debating about. Next prepared motion is dealing with faith that stretches far beyond the borders of Europe, even though it has its headquarters there. The role of the Catholic Church in the world diplomacy since 1945 is questioned in the motion, which will probably be viewed very strongly (and very differently) by both believers and atheists, or perhaps Christians and non-Christians, or even Catholics and other Christians. To contrast this topic, one other prepared motion deals with the final frontier of scientific discovery, space exploration, and whether it should be financed from public money or not. A matter that is especially relevant in the light of the recent meteor explosion over a Russian city and the dawn of commercial space exploitation by private space tourism agencies or space mining corporations.

The remaining two motions then deal with armed conflicts, one very specifically and the other in general. The specific focus of one of the motions is the NATO and what really justifies its existence ever since the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. The last remaining prepared motion then puts forth a fundamental question relevant to all of human history and every locality on Earth – can war actually solve more problems than it creates? It is needless to say that we can expect a wide variety of different historical and cultural takes on this one, given how many countries will attend the competition. But that’s not all - since there will be as many basic rounds of prepared motions as surprise impromptu motions, every one of which will be selected from three thematically linked options, expect many more topics tackled.

If you are interested in hearing what the debaters will have to say, but you cannot be physically present, do not despair. Just like last year, we will attempt to stream all of the debates in real time on our ustream channel, HeartofEuropeTV. And even if you won’t be able to view these live debates, as soon as we process the videos they will be available at our youtube channel, TheCzechDebateTV. As you can see, debating in the 21st century certainly has its perks. And speaking of 21st century, feel free to follow the tournament also on social networks, Heart of Europe Debating Tournament – Official Site (Facebook) and HeartofEuropeDT (Twitter). We would certainly encourage even an online debate about the motions going on simultaneously with the tournament, as well as any signs of support for the debaters.

Martin Rezny (HOEDT ORGCOM)