Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 8 February 2016 issue)

Dear Kam,
I’m studying for a debating competition and I want a really killer argument. I’m thinking of starting with “The dictionary defines …” and then moving on to compare the other side to Hitler and how we can learn from Sweden. What do you think?
Big Mouth

Sometimes, you’re having a heated political argument and you privately realise you’re doing badly. It’s embarrassing when you realise that the other person has a better argument than you and that your ideas are rubbish. So what do you do? You could try and say “case closed” or that the other person is being seditious, but that just makes you sound more stupid. Or you could try one of two arguments that might sound really clever but which really indicate that you have completely run out of ideas.

The first is to mention Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. The Hitler argument is only used if people agree that Hitler was a very, very bad person, which isn’t necessarily true in Asia, where he is surprisingly, and sadly, quite popular. He’s popular in Thailand and during the recent Indonesian presidential elections, a pop video endorsing the losing candidate was, well, utterly Nazi. And far too many Muslims think Hitler was a good thing. So just to be clear, Hitler was quite probably the worst person ever. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use him in an argument.

You might think you’re being very clever if you say, “Your argument led to Hitler’s rise to power”. Don’t ever use this argument because you’re probably wrong, it wasn’t that simple, and most of all because it’s a tired old cliché. You’re not the first to use the Hitler card. Everybody uses the Hitler card when they’ve run out of ideas and they know they’re losing the argument. The idea for using this argument is that the other person must now be arguing in favour of Hitler. Case closed, is the idea.

The other argument you must avoid is mentioning Sweden or any other Scandinavian country (Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland). Scandinavian countries might be the exemplars of social democracy with the world’s best education systems, lowest levels of corruption, best gender balance as well as being the home of ABBA, but it’s a tired old cliché to compare your country to Scandinavia. It’s just unfair. These countries are old and rich. Norway, for instance, has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund having not squandered the nation’s oil money but invested it for future generations. But don’t think that Norway does not have corruption too.

A shocking case of corruption recently exploded in Norway’s second largest city, Bergen (population 280,000). The mayor of Bergen was charged with corruption because she accepted first-class flights and a stay at a luxury hotel in Venice from a cruise ship operator. Furthermore, she accepted tickets to travel on one of the cruise ships. She then lobbied for Bergen to become the home port for a new cruise ship and allowed a party to be held at the port for the christening of the ship, complete with fi reworks! I think you’d agree that this is an astonishing and heinous level of corruption, so let’s stop comparing ourselves to Scandinavia. We have nothing to learn from them. In fact we could teach them a thing or two.

Dear Kam,
There’s an old saying: There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Malaysia is in the news around the world. That’s a good thing, right?
Optimist

Yay! Malaysia is making headlines around the world! Unfortunately, it’s all because of that pesky 1Malaysia Development Bhd thing. Now, the Swiss are getting in on the act. FIFA has its headquarters in Switzerland and until very recently, the Swiss authorities never said anything about corruption, but now they are saying something about Malaysia. It’s as if they’re trying to prove something. I’m sure that over the years Malaysians have visited Switzerland almost as much as Bollywood productions, so, it’s a bit unfair that they should now do this. It’s very ungrateful. And haven’t they heard, case closed. Or perhaps not.

Reprinted with the kind permission of