Every Thursday evening, for almost 200 years now, students in the university city of Oxford in the UK walk hurriedly towards a beautiful, old, Gothic-style building in St Michael’s Street.
This is where, since 1823, British and foreign students have been honing their public-speaking skills – in the Debating Chamber of the Oxford Union Society, subscribing to the classical adage that education is about teaching people how to think, not teaching them what to think.
Student debaters – wearing black tie – are trained to argue ideas or policies with the aim of strategically persuading the members in the Chamber. They are judged on the content of their passionate arguments, on the language and the voice used to say it and on how they respond to the opposition’s reasoning. Speeches are delivered and internationally renowned guest experts are called in to substantiate argumentation.
A vote is then taken. Not by show of hands but by show of feet, as it were. Members in the Chamber exit the hall through a door marked with ‘ayes’ on the right hand side and ‘noes’ on the left hand side, then they head to the bar to wait for the result of the night’s motion.
The Oxford Union is a wacky, witty and whimsical society, and there’s no denying that it’s a pompous platform for students who see their future in politics, journalism and media. Some scoff it off as elitist (you can only become a life member of the Union if you study at Oxford University), but the fact of the matter is that seeped as it is in history and tradition, the rest of the world takes the Union very seriously.
Of utmost international interest are its ‘Speakers Events’. Over these two centuries, the Oxford Union has hosted a diversity of world leaders, scientists and creatives. Some inspiring like Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking; and others more controversial, like Richard Nixon, Yasser Arafat, Gaddafi, Marine Le Pen and OJ Simpson.
And because the Union is made up of students in their late teens and early 20s, there’s also all sorts of other off-the-political-beaten track guests, such as footballer Diego Maradona, Kermit the Frog puppet, porn actress Stormy Daniels and trash-TV presenter Jerry Springer.
Getting an invite to speak at the Oxford Union is not the same as getting an invite from, say, our KSU
Each celebrity is absolutely flattered to be asked to visit. In fact the Union boasts: “We do not pay speakers to visit, they accept our invitations because of how unique and prestigious our historic platform is.”
The whole world watches these events, because speakers tend to open up when questioned in a cosy library-room full of innocent-looking students. One student, recently, told The Guardian that “the wider world is forced to care because there are sometimes interesting speakers, who sometimes say interesting or incendiary things, lulled into a false sense of security by the old boys’ club atmosphere, and the vast quantities of wine they’re fed before they speak”.
Because of this and the oft ensuing foment, the debates and speaker events are professionally filmed by the Union and then broadcast in full. This is not just done for marketing purposes but also so that nothing can be ‘taken completely out of context to create sensationalism’.
It stands to reason, therefore, that getting an invite to speak at the Oxford Union is not the same as getting an invite from, say, our KSU.
In fact, when country presidents receive an invite to address the Oxford Union, I am sure that they do a little twirl around the room and punch the air with a “Yeah!”
On the rare occasion when a president is maybe too busy to recall what the Oxford Union is, then at least his or her Private Secretary would be jumping up and down with joy and exclaiming: “Phwoar! My President’s made it to the prestigious list!”
This means that Presidents invited to speak:
a) never go to Oxford, sit down in the glorious library and tell their audience “Yes, I was given a lecture about what you do here” because it shows that they haven’t grasped the stature of the invitation
b) go there extremely well prepared for tricky questions from innocent-looking but healthily irreverent, savvy students;
c) make sure they are thoroughly briefed on every single controversial issue happening in their own country and therefore would not need to be prompted by their High Commissioners;
d) make sure that if they are caught on the wrong foot, they deviate the answer to the best of their ability.
e) most definitely avoid dismissing a money laundering bank as merely ‘a private bank’ when its clients are the full black list of the corrupt Azerbaijani presidential family and when snuggling among them, there’s the Chief of Staff of the country’s Prime Minister.
Why? Because the audience of the Oxford Union – those sitting in that beautiful library as well as all the international viewers online – is one that knows how to think.
Perhaps a Maltese version of the Oxford Union could be the antidote to our sorry Xarabank mentality. We desperately need a platform to foster the art of debating, where expert opinion matters, where people are encouraged to make an argument and not raucously voice their whims.
The University of Malta Debating Union and The English-Speaking Union have started pushing this among our young people but it needs to be given more attention. Perhaps the President of Malta, by way of atonement, could take it under her wing?
krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece