The One With The Alcohol Debate (11/2/2012)

School debates here are always interesting! Some of the motions we have had so far are “Men are the cause of separation of families” (opposing side won), “Western culture is better than African culture” (proposing side won), and this week’s motion “Alcohol should be avoided by students”.  It is a Tanzanian national law that no student is allowed to drink so currently drinking can get a student expelled.  But the debate was great! The proposing side had mostly the generic answers that you might expect; alcohol makes it harder for students to focus on their school work, it causes conflict and violence, and some more creative reasons like it is more likely for a girl to get pregnant is the boys have been drinking.  But the opposing side’s arguments were, in my opinion, impressive.  They said drinking provides jobs to those who make the alcohol which is good for the economy, it gives students confidence which will make them do better on the exams, “[it] helps boys avoid shame when approaching girls” (by the way it is against school rules for students to date so I am not really sure how this was in support of the argument) and finally that alcohol kills bacteria which will make students healthier.  The scores for most debates are in the low teens.  The debate this week was heated though, and the proposing side won 29-28.  The chairman of the debate (the schools head prefect) gave a speech after restating the perils of students drinking alcohol.  I guess alcohol is a popular topic for students no matter what country you are in.