Debates
I am all for debates. There is currently the debate between Kerry and Bush in the US and apparently, Kerry didn't perform too bad last night in the first debate. It seems that Bush was great in the first 30 minutes, but lost his train of thought (if he ever....) after that. May be that is all what is there - lack of concentration after 30 minutes, I don't know.I loved election debates when I was in Germany. Before the elections and when the elections were over. Nothing livelier than some hardcore and emotional scenes - okay, nothing compared to Taiwanese or Korean parliamentary sessions, when delegates beat each other up. I miss those in Malaysia, or when I was in Singapore or Indonesia. Something is missing here. The real discussions, the challenges on TV, in the radio.
Not the "always-so-polite-beating-around-the-bush" tendencies. The interruptions and reiterations.I loved the election fever when I was way younger, back in Germany and how they went on for a couple of weeks before the actual date. Hearing the different candidates speaking life in the center of the town. They came to address their "Rakyat". Somewhere behind somewhere were the hagglers - dependent on the party, I was amongst them, for sure, when there was the great debate in Europe about war and peace and the installation of cruise missiles and Pershing (no shame about this!!) - does anyone remember this or know about this?
I remember that a group of us had whistles and we were loud. So more than 100 meters away from the speaker, we realised that we irritated him. The police were also angry and asked us to stop the whistling or they would take away our whistles. So, well, to spite them, I whistled on my fingers. Never will I forget the expression on the police guy's face.
Was I bad? Yeah, sure – but I believe that opposition is part of growing up. One can call it generation gap, or also starting to formulate an opinion. It forced me to read a lot of the papers from the parties that I don't agree with, and to learn to think through both sides. To see both sides without getting angry - real angry. To smile at those who lost their temper and steamed of.Ha - I discovered something that I miss. There is not much that I miss here. I miss the forests in Germany, the sunsets, the parks, and the public transport system. Now I miss election debates as well. Hm!
I am all for debates. There is currently the debate between Kerry and Bush in the US and apparently, Kerry didn't perform too bad last night in the first debate. It seems that Bush was great in the first 30 minutes, but lost his train of thought (if he ever....) after that. May be that is all what is there - lack of concentration after 30 minutes, I don't know.I loved election debates when I was in Germany. Before the elections and when the elections were over. Nothing livelier than some hardcore and emotional scenes - okay, nothing compared to Taiwanese or Korean parliamentary sessions, when delegates beat each other up. I miss those in Malaysia, or when I was in Singapore or Indonesia. Something is missing here. The real discussions, the challenges on TV, in the radio.
Not the "always-so-polite-beating-around-the-bush" tendencies. The interruptions and reiterations.I loved the election fever when I was way younger, back in Germany and how they went on for a couple of weeks before the actual date. Hearing the different candidates speaking life in the center of the town. They came to address their "Rakyat". Somewhere behind somewhere were the hagglers - dependent on the party, I was amongst them, for sure, when there was the great debate in Europe about war and peace and the installation of cruise missiles and Pershing (no shame about this!!) - does anyone remember this or know about this?
I remember that a group of us had whistles and we were loud. So more than 100 meters away from the speaker, we realised that we irritated him. The police were also angry and asked us to stop the whistling or they would take away our whistles. So, well, to spite them, I whistled on my fingers. Never will I forget the expression on the police guy's face.
Was I bad? Yeah, sure – but I believe that opposition is part of growing up. One can call it generation gap, or also starting to formulate an opinion. It forced me to read a lot of the papers from the parties that I don't agree with, and to learn to think through both sides. To see both sides without getting angry - real angry. To smile at those who lost their temper and steamed of.Ha - I discovered something that I miss. There is not much that I miss here. I miss the forests in Germany, the sunsets, the parks, and the public transport system. Now I miss election debates as well. Hm!
posted by Andreas @ 3:23 pm
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