Indonesia enters the 2012 World Schools Debating Championships, which will start today in the South African city of Cape Town, with an uniquely favourable draw. While Team Indonesia will face reigning champion Singapore in the first round, it will not meet any country where English is the main native language for the subsequent 7 rounds. Furthermore, since its first participation in 2001, Indonesia had always met at least one country with Anglo-Saxon roots. Not even one this year. The other opponents are Zimbabwe, Mongolia, South Korea, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Israel and Botswana.
Four preliminaries have prepared motions and the other half are impromptu. All teams debate 8 different teams in the prelims, one from each of the 8 rank-based groupings. Indonesia is in the E grouping (ranks 25-30) and ranks #29 out of 48 contestants. The WSDC groupings are calculated based on victories and judge votes in the past 3 championships.
Team Indonesia 2012 consists of twins Revian Wirabuana and Revaldi Wirabuana from SMA 4 Denpasar, second-grader Cheryl Nazik Cosslett from SMA 1 Bogor and Alif Satria from SMA 8 Yogyakarta. There is no returning member in this team, one aspect that will be common in other contingents because the 2011 edition was only five months ago. Some nations like favourites New Zealand are even sending the same exact team. Most members of Team Indonesia 2011 are already in college.
Since its WSDC entry, Indonesia has broken twice into the octofinals in 2003 and 2004. The highest rank is #11 in 2003 but the team which collected the most judge votes was the one who went to WSDC 2010 in Qatar. Unfortunately, the latter did not break. Only the top 16 teams can break into the knockouts.
The draw, speaking position and schedule of Team Indonesia 2012's debates are as follows:
19 January 2012 @ The Settlers High School
R1 Prop vs #6/A Singapore - Impromptu
R2 Opp vs #48/H Zimbabwe
THBT newly democratised Arab states should not allow religious parties to participate in elections
20 January 2012 @ Rhenish Girls High School
R3 Opp vs #38/G Mongolia - Impromptu
R4 Prop vs #8/B South Korea
THBT developing nations should place limits on internal rural-urban migration
22 January 2012 @ University of Cape Town
R5 Opp vs #33/F Germany - Impromptu
R6 Prop vs #13/C United Arab Emirates
THBT the feminist movement should seek a ban on pornography
23 January 2012 @ Heideveld Township
R7 Prop vs #19/D Israel - Impromptu
R8 Opp vs #25/E Botswana
THBT states should enshrine legally actionable socio-economic rights
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