The British National Debate Team’s American Tour 2001 by Michael Birshan The Team The British National Debate Team 2001 was Eleanor Winton and Michael Birshan. Eleanor graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in Law. She reached the Grand Final of both the World Debate Championships and the British & Irish Debate Championships. She was also Deputy-Convenor of the World Debate Championships in 2001, when they were hosted by the University of Glasgow. Michael graduated from Balliol College in the University of Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He won the European Debate Championships. He was also a member of the British National Debate Squad in 1999 and 2000, representing the English-Speaking Union on debate and coaching tours of Japan and Portugal. The Context The American Tour 2001 began very soon after the September 11 th attacks. Indeed, we took some of the first flights over the Atlantic when United States airspace reopened. When the world’s tourists were staying away, we embarked on an 8-week, 24-state, coast-to-coast trip. When virtually nobody in America was flying, we took 30 flights. When the Boston Globe published a list of the ten least safe airports in America, we flew through eight of them. We were in the United States during the eerie calm before the attack on Afghanistan, the start of the “War on Terror”, the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, the liberation of Kabul, and the capture of Kandahar. We were there when the nation was blanketed with stars and stripes, when President Bush had the highest approval rating in the history of approval ratings, and when the country was in panic over anthrax. It was a true privilege to tour America so soon after the attacks on New York and Washington. With no tour in the aftermath of the assault on Pearl Harbor, this year’s tour compares probably only with those during the height of the Vietnam era in providing insight into the United States at a defining moment in its history. Acknowledgements We were shown extraordinary hospitality virtually everywhere we went by debaters, coaches, and others. We are very grateful to all of them. We must thank David Bussey, Debbie Newman, Trevor Sather, Elizabeth Virgo, and Marc Whitmore who selected us as well as the EnglishSpeaking Union, National Communication Association (NCA), and American Forensics Association for supporting the tour. We are particularly appreciative of the work done by Dr Barb Pickering of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the other members of the NCA’s Committee for International Debate and Discussion in organising the tour.
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.