This afternoon we were hosted by the city-hall of (a part of) Budapest. The deputy-mayor speeched about Tolerance and also reveiled that he liked Amsterdam very much because his son was studying there. The son told him that Dutch people really think very different and that you have to be tolerant to survive in a city like Amsterdam.
This was of course a very interesting introduction of the debate we conducted this afternoon, which was chaired by two very experienced chairs who really did a great job.
Some quotes from the debate:
First session: Democracy doesn't exist
Marti started by saying he could not find any definition and stating that only 30 countries were referred to as more or less democratic. This was counterargued be the negative team by giving the concept of democracy as developed by the Greeks.
Eline was the first one to crossexamine and she asked how you could be sure that the government, if it were chosen, would do what the people wanted
Judy : democracy really exists. She gave two characteristics of democracy : voting rights and the fact that people do have fundamental human rights like freedom of speech and equality for the law. She referred to historical examples, like America and France where the first representative democracies were founded.
George: Democracy is an illusion
Lieke said that she couldn’t find any definition , and that democracy was like a balloon
Philip: democracy does exist when you claim that it doesn’t exist in certain situations (like in Leiden or the UN)
Bas admitted that it was really very difficult to bring forward your ideas in English so this time he would be silent…
Second session: Terrorist acts shouldn't be allowed publicity in the media
Hinkel Adras : Terrorists will give up when nobody gets scared since people don’t know what is going on. If you don’t know the problem the problem does not exist.
Covering up the truth will cause more fear (Barbie)
Martin : How can you prevent that terrorists use the media, they will use the internet anyway Like in Amsterdam when the plane crashed everybody knew what happened in 15 minutes.Terror or fear is the weapon of terrorists, and more fear will be the result of a cover up
Laura said again that the media are a weapon of the terrorists
Marian: a spirit against terrorism is not really necessary if you don’t mention the acts of terrorists. It is for the people’s own good
Mariska: How are you going to prevent the terrorists from using the internet.Marian immediately replied that that was not the point of the debate, the question was whether it was necessary and not how you could do that.
Anne stated(amongst other things) that in a democracy there was no possibility to prohibit freedom of speech and that if you did the terrorists would win.
Anne admitted that she had contradicted herself by stating that people got scared if they did know about terrorist acts ..how could they get scared then Liza asked
Liza wondered whether papers were objective enough to be able to report about the terrorist acts in a proper way
Media had too much influence Amy said. Media magnify certain things.....
Well, you can see the debate touched upon the basic fundaments of democracy and human rights. In the end in my opinion there were only winners, because everybody had to make up his mind about fundamental questions..
This was of course a very interesting introduction of the debate we conducted this afternoon, which was chaired by two very experienced chairs who really did a great job.
Some quotes from the debate:
First session: Democracy doesn't exist
Marti started by saying he could not find any definition and stating that only 30 countries were referred to as more or less democratic. This was counterargued be the negative team by giving the concept of democracy as developed by the Greeks.
Eline was the first one to crossexamine and she asked how you could be sure that the government, if it were chosen, would do what the people wanted
Judy : democracy really exists. She gave two characteristics of democracy : voting rights and the fact that people do have fundamental human rights like freedom of speech and equality for the law. She referred to historical examples, like America and France where the first representative democracies were founded.
George: Democracy is an illusion
Lieke said that she couldn’t find any definition , and that democracy was like a balloon
Philip: democracy does exist when you claim that it doesn’t exist in certain situations (like in Leiden or the UN)
Bas admitted that it was really very difficult to bring forward your ideas in English so this time he would be silent…
Second session: Terrorist acts shouldn't be allowed publicity in the media
Hinkel Adras : Terrorists will give up when nobody gets scared since people don’t know what is going on. If you don’t know the problem the problem does not exist.
Covering up the truth will cause more fear (Barbie)
Martin : How can you prevent that terrorists use the media, they will use the internet anyway Like in Amsterdam when the plane crashed everybody knew what happened in 15 minutes.Terror or fear is the weapon of terrorists, and more fear will be the result of a cover up
Laura said again that the media are a weapon of the terrorists
Marian: a spirit against terrorism is not really necessary if you don’t mention the acts of terrorists. It is for the people’s own good
Mariska: How are you going to prevent the terrorists from using the internet.Marian immediately replied that that was not the point of the debate, the question was whether it was necessary and not how you could do that.
Anne stated(amongst other things) that in a democracy there was no possibility to prohibit freedom of speech and that if you did the terrorists would win.
Anne admitted that she had contradicted herself by stating that people got scared if they did know about terrorist acts ..how could they get scared then Liza asked
Liza wondered whether papers were objective enough to be able to report about the terrorist acts in a proper way
Media had too much influence Amy said. Media magnify certain things.....
Well, you can see the debate touched upon the basic fundaments of democracy and human rights. In the end in my opinion there were only winners, because everybody had to make up his mind about fundamental questions..
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