The panelists and the moderator in a discussion at the Qatar National Convention Centre yesterday. PICTURES: Jayan Orma


By Noimot Olayiwola/Staff Reporter

Imbibing the culture of holding constructive arguments, debates and dialogue among youths, is the key to a better world, felt the panelists at the opening discussion of the ‘fourth International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and Pedagogy of Empowerment’, which began in Doha yesterday.

The three-day conference is being hosted by the Qatar Debate at the Qatar National Convention Centre, under the theme: ‘Thinking and Speaking A Better World’.

The conference is being co-organised by US-based World Debate Institute, Slovenia’s Proet Contra, Institute of Dialogue (Zip:Za in Proti) US-based International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) and the International Centre for the Advancement of Political Communication and Argumentation.

Speakers in the discussion on “Engaging youth in constructive dialogue to promote peace, understanding and mutual respect”, moderated by Al Jazeera English’s Jassim al-Azzawi, included Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID) professor Ibrahim al-Naimi, Dr Aisha al-Mannai from Qatar University College of Shariah and Islamic Studies, University of Vermont professor Alfred C Snider, Florida Atlantic University Dr David Cratis Williams and Carnegie Mellon University, US student Dana al-Ansari.

The panel discussion was witnessed by Qatar Foundation Chairperson HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, who opened the conference and exhorted the audience to accept dialogue within their homes as a starting point in order to drive home the points being raised during the conference.

“We are investing so much on education because we believe in the future of education and with 80% of the people in this room agreeing to embrace dialogue in their homes, it shows that people are moving forward and towards dialogue and there is hope that that movement will continue into the future,” HH Sheikha Moza said.

Qatar Debate executive director Dr Hayat A Maarafi also spoke during the opening of the event.

While sharing her perspectives on why changing the mentality of people should precede debating, Dr al-Mannai stated: “Debating can’t be grounded without the ideas of the youths and one way of thinking can’t achieve the aim of dialoguing. All these killings and destruction can be traced to this way of thinking, so it is important not to deny others from their rights.”

Prof Snider suggested that there were other ways of dialoguing other than violence, saying: “People are always looking for the easy way out … but to build something through argument, it must be productive and must not try to impose by
violence but try to persuade.”

“We can overcome the fundamental problem of dialoguing by telling the young people that thinking is different and that debating shows that thinking is fun, interactive, it is being human and it is about life,” he added.

In her own view of how to mitigate the fears of debating due to cultural changes, Al-Ansari maintained that it was important to first understand assumptions of other people.

While asked to comment on historical events across the world, especially the 9/11 attacks in the US, Dr al-Naimi said that the Arab and the Muslim world have suffered due to the unfortunate incident.

“This region has suffered due to some people’s views about Arabs and Muslims after the 9/11 attacks and in order to correct the erroneous notion, that is why the CICID is organising many activities to discuss these issues and we are also making efforts to ensure that we raise new generations with certain ethics that will promote peace,” he said.

Dr al-Naimi added that the centre is also building and teaching future generations that there are many different ways of handling issues aside helping them to understand this better through debating.

Prof Williams commented that the ‘notion of creating stereotype is a problem of reasoning and logic and as a result of a closed mind’.

“It is important to create openness of mind in order to transcend the understanding of others … and there is the need to focus more efforts on education because educating the youth, most especially, is the key to learning how to conduct constructive debate,” he maintained.

Earlier before the opening of the conference, Shayma al-Mughairy and Sabah Rabiah al-Kuwari enthralled the audience during a show titled: ‘Sand Art and Arabic Poetry: Qatar Past and Present’.

 

 

 BELOW: A section of the audience at the conference yesterday.