The Oxford Union

Apologies for not posting earlier everyone; I don't know where the past week went to be entirely honest. From my first tutorial and beginning my study of German to yet another week of lectures, logic, and non-academic activities, things have been rather hectic. For this post though, I want to focus on a particular part of my experience thus far: the Oxford Union.

The Debating Chamber. It's like a mini-Parliament.

For those of you not familiar with the Oxford Union, it is a debating society that - predictably - primarily consists of members of Oxford University. Although it does indeed field a strong competitive debating team, the Oxford Union is far better known for the huge variety of famous speakers that it hosts every term as well as its Formal Thursday Debates. To drop some names briefly: this term's guests include Billy Joel, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Buzz Aldrin, and Jesse Jackson, amongst many, many others. In fact, I just got back from seeing Hamid Karzai a couple of hours before this post.

Hi Hamid!

As one might expect, he talked about the great progress that Afghanistan has made in the past ten years during his presidency, and then proceeded to take numerous questions from the audience. Though I'm perhaps not quite as informed about Afghanistan as I ought to be, I took quite a liking to him over the course of his speech. He spoke in a very practical, methodical, and intelligent manner, going through each specific policy area and citing statistics on how each has improved dramatically in the past decade. In this way, despite the many problems that undoubtedly still plague his country, President Karzai rather effectively communicated a reasonable optimism in his nation's future. But enough about that.

In addition to such illustrious speakers, the Oxford Union also holds weekly formal debates on Thursday, where prominent political and societal figures debate motions such as "This House Has No Confidence in Her Majesty's Government" or "This House Believes Religion Harms Society." In addition to speeches from members of Parliament, chief business people, and other prominent persons relevant to the debate, members of the Union themselves can give speak from the floor. Regrettably, I have yet do so.

Nonetheless, I have attended and thoroughly enjoyed all of these debates so far. Of particular note, last night's debate was on the motion "This House Believes University Education is a Right, Not a Privilege." When the last speaker for the proposition - Minister of State for Universities and Science David Willetts - took a point of information (read: question) from the audience, it turned out that the person he had called on had some rather strong views about his policies. Specifically, strong views that he felt the need to shout rather loudly and aggressively, in conjunction with a large, obscene banner hung from the gallery by two accomplices.

Specifically, this banner. Click for context.

So that's fun.

Even though I've yet to speak at one of these formal debates, I am still doing my best to get involved in the Oxford Union, as it is obviously a very interesting and entertaining society. To that end, I have been attending its debating workshops on Sunday evenings, from which I have learned that competitive debating in the UK is very very different from anything I have ever done before. I won't explain the intricacies of the British Parliamentary debate format here, but suffice it to say that I have no idea what I'm doing and if you want to know more, you can drop a comment or send me a message.

But in addition to slowly exploring the world of competitive debating, I have also joined up with the Library Committee of the Union as a junior member. Essentially, we meet on Mondays and decide what books to buy for and withdraw from the Oxford Union Society Library.

It is a very nice library.

Well, as you might have guessed by my increasing brevity, this post has already exceeded the time and space I had allotted it, so I must now draw it to a close. As always, feedback, questions, and comments are very much appreciated. Till next time, this House is adjourned.