PHOTO: At the conclusion of the exhibition debate at the Faculty of Organization Sciences in Belgrade.

Several Serbian students attended the International Debate Academy in Slovenia this last November. This allowed me to rekindle my long-running relationship with the debate community in Serbia that began in 1996 when I first visited. I have been back again twice, once to visit the Faculty of Law and my friends Sima Avramovic and Obrad Stanojevic and also once again to attend the Belgrade Open with a University of Vermont team and stage a debate workshop with John Meany of the Claremont Colleges.

<== Misha, Mirjana and Vesna

I had met Vesna Ceranic and Misha Mitrovic when they came to Slovenia on a non-debate exchange, but they scheduled a friendly debate at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana that I critiqued and also videotaped. You can see it at http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/VideoBlog/FFDC4AE7-B4BD-409A-AC8E-165F3CF1B26A.html . Vesna and Misha were not happy with this debate, but it got them fired up and they both came to the Academy. At the Academy we talked about arranging a debate workshop for university students in Belgrade and I indicated that I was very interested. We did some planning and they found a number of students from various faculties who were interested, and so it was arranged. Bojana Skrt and I took the train to Belgrade from Ljubljana (nine hours, but an interesting way to see the countryside) and arrived in Belgrade early in the evening. We were met by Vesna and a new debater named Mario (he had a car and turned out to be a very talented guy) and they drove us through Belgrade to a special university housing complex called Rifat where we were checked into very nice accommodations. We adjourned to a nearly restaurant for a light meal and talked about the schedule and made other plans for the three day event coming up. Everyone seemed very excited, and it looked like the planning had been excellently done. Bojana’s phone worked and she made some phone calls to begin planning to meet up with old friends from Serbia during the trip.

<== Mila with her promo pamphlet for her documentary Cinema Komunisto

The next morning we got a chance to visit with Mila Turajlic. She had visited Vermont. I had worked with her before, and she had been on Flashpoint television http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/VideoBlog/34E2E952-80D9-456A-8F8D-22ED5BBB5A8A.html . We had a lot of catching up to do and we did. She has been in Mexico working on Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and also organizing plans to do a documentary about the Yugoslavian film industry under Tito. It sounds like a fantastic project and two television networks have already signed on for financing and hopefully more will commit funds out of the eleven who are interested. Because I think she is one of the smartest people I know I asked her about the current situation in Serbia and she was extremely informative, and it was a good way to start the visit. She dropped us off at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences that was hosting the event. We also heard from Tomislav Kargacin, one of my dearest friends, who has been a faculty member at the World Debate Institute, and he planned to come in from Novi Sad on Sunday to help out with the seminar.

<== Jovana debating

People began to gather and soon we had about 30 people, just about everyone who had signed up for the seminar. We didn’t have much of an opening ceremony but got right down to it. I gave my short talk on “debate as the success skill of the 21st Century,” I reviewed the schedule and Bojana did an assessment of the attendees so she could divide them up into separate groups based on experience. Then I did a lecture on public speaking and we took a coffee break. After the break we did about 90 minutes of public speaking small group practice sessions, evaluating everyone’s skills and needs for improvement and allowing them to speak several times each. Then we ended for the day and adjourned to Kovac, a restaurant nearby favored by the debaters, for a discussion of feedback from the students and possible adjustments for the rest of the schedule. After that one of the law students, Jovana, took us to the Faculty of Law to make a connection with Sima and Obrad to meet later. They were, as usual, working with their students on Friday evening, this time coaching them for performance at an upcoming rhetoric contest. We made a lunch date for Monday. I also saw Nikola, who had been a student at WDI, Voya (now a professor) and Mirodrag, now a vice dean. I don’t think he is in that punk band any more. We met up with Serbian debate organizer Zorica Pazic of the Association for Creative Communication and Debate in Serbia. We had a wonderful dinner at a traditional Serbian restaurant, and we were joined by Emil, who is now in the insurance business but had attended the World Debate Institute as a university student. We had a wonderful time and a fascinating conversation. We went back to Rifat and got some needed sleep because Saturday, we knew, would be difficult.

<== Faculty of Organizational Sciences

Saturday was, indeed, challenging. We continued our pattern of lectures followed by active workshops to turn the concepts into behavior. I lectured about argumentation and then we had an argument building workshop. We went to Kovac for lunch and then it was back to work. In the afternoon Bojana lectured about case building and then we broke up into case building drill sessions, with students being given a motion and then ten minutes to come up with a case outline and interpretation. They each got to do at least two motions. We had a brief coffee break and then I did a presentation on refutation techniques and we did some example refutation. We adjourned to Kovac (great apricot schnapps there) and had some great fellowship with the debaters. They were exhausted but they were very excited. We met up with Professor Mirjana Drakulic of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences who is the sponsor of the debate club there and who is adored by the students as an academic, mentor and supporter of debate. She and her husband Ratko took us down by the river for dinner. We went to a simply marvelous dinner boat called The Principle (there were others called Dialog and Buddha close by) and we had a fabulous meal overlooking the beautiful city across the water, with the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Faculty of Art on one side of us, and the Kalemargen (major park overlooking the conflunce of the Sava and Danube rivers and dominated by the towering statue dedicated to the struggle against the Turks, called the Victor). The food was simply spectacular. I am a real fan of using nuts in good cooking, so the two dishes I had with pine nuts in one and hazelnuts in the other were wonderful. The apricot schnapps was also the best I have ever had. The music was excellent, a trio from Belgium with an amazing range of music. I declined dessert because I was satiated and satisfied. The conversation during the meal was very stimulating, and reviewed many things, including the Milosevic era and the NATO bombing campaign. We also discussed the possibility of my teaching a summer class in persuasion at the faculty. We took a brief walk along the river taking in the sights. Then, it was back to Rifat, as we were both obviously tired.

<== Crew from English debate on Serbia not entering the EU

Sunday we started bright and early and it was to be a day of debates. We had scheduled one in the morning and one in the afternoon, both with long critiques. We had some debates in English and others in Serbian, as Bojana and Tomislav can handle that language quite well. The first motion was that Serbia should not join the European Union. Tomislav Kargacin arrived as expected and it was a wonderful reunion. He is now teaching in Novi Sad several subjects including philosophy, rhetoric and Latin. We went to lunch together at (you guessed it) Kovac and had a wonderful time remembering all of our past adventures and tribulations. We asked about people we both knew and traded information. It did my heart great good to be with Tomislav again. I miss him very much. We went back to the faculty for the next debate, this time on the motion that War Criminals should be tried in their home countries. This is the motion that we are going to use in the exhibition debate to finish up the workshop, and we thought it would not hurt to have some practice. We were right. Some legal specifics about crimes against humanity and the International Criminal Court needed to be worked out. After the critiques I met with Bojana and Tomislav to pick eight students for the exhibition debate, which would be in Serbian. It was a very difficult choice but it had to be made. We announced our choices, they formed teams, we assigned them positions and then they took some brief prep time before the debate.

<== Tomislav Kargacin

The debate was well attended. We did not get any media, as they were attending the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the fall of Slobo Milosevic in the city center, but I can think of no better way to celebrate that than by having a debate about war crimes. The debate was very active and contained a lot of passion and some excellent arguments. The audience was very involved and seemed to love the debate. Mirjana was also there and seemed to enjoy it.  It is amazing watching the students debate in their own language. They are faster, more improvisational, loaded wih more content in their arguments and so much more passionate than  in English. The audience overwhelmingly voted for the second opposition team, Vesna and her partner Milan Krstanovic as the top team.

There was a closing assembly where certificates were given out and a CD full of debate resource material were handed to each student. A special thank you was given to Mirjana for her support. We all took some photos and congratulated each other. Everyone seemed very happy about our very intense debating weekend. We adjourned to Kovac for some refreshments and a light meal. We were joined by Philip of the NGO Open Communiction and Surgen, who has been an important debate organizer in Serbia for some time and now works on a project monitoring Serbia’s readiness for joining the EU. We had a wonderful time and I especially enjoyed being with Tomislav again. But it was getting late and Tomislav needed to catch his bus back to Novi Sad. Mario gave us a ride and we all said goodbye. I know I will see Tomislav again, and I hope it is soon.

<== With Sima and Jovana at the Law Faculty

The next morning it was snowing so plans for tourism were cancelled. It was December 25, but that is not Christmas in the Serbian Orthodox faith, so it was just another working Monday. We did go to the Law Faculty where Jovana showed us around and we saw all of the changes there and then we met Sima and Obrad for lunch. We went to a restaurant I had been to on my previous visit, called Madera, and we had another wonderful meal, capping off a wonderful dining experiences during the visit to Serbia. The creme caramel was delicious, but the conversation with old friends Obrad, now the president of the Serbian Council for Higher Education, and Sima was even more deeply appreciated. They are both very busy and had juggled their schedules and cancelled meetings in order to go to lunch, and I really appreciated that. We talked about a variety of subjects, including recruiting Fulbright Fellows to come to the Law Faculty. We said goodbye and snapped a few photos before Jovana took us to the train station for our afternoon all-night train that would arrive in Ljubljana at about 2:30 AM.

<== Students focus on the critique

The train ride back to Ljubljana was not as nice as the trip down due to some unheated rail cars and delays, but we survived and even made some new friends.

The program seemed to be a success. The strong organizational skills of Vesna and Misha, the enthusiasm of the students and the support of Mirjana made it all possible. It was great to visit Serbia, to see old friends and to meet new ones.

I will come back!