Debates: Doing it the Mehdi Hasan Way!
Nasir Dar
We live in a world where almost everything is questioned. In such circumstances, it becomes necessary to defend our opinions. Debates help us understand different topics better. We can take part in debates to decipher our thoughts and improvise on them. Debates help us acquire a better personality.
Debates also play a vital role in amassing knowledge about different aspects of life. Debates help us understand differences on different vertical of life but in India there are no opinions. There is only noise. This has led to serious deterioration of the quality of journalism and a lot of aspiring speakers have given up on their dream of taking the next level stage.
The concept of debates has completely changed in India recently. People seem to have mistaken debates with the constant shouting and unprecedented blabbering which they hear on the Prime Time shows of every news channel. These loud noises do not qualify as debates. But there are platforms and personalities who have kept the concept of debates alive. These people are a hope for the people around the world. One prime example is Mehdi Hasan.
According to Wikipedia, Mehdi RazaHasan (born July 1979) is a British-American political journalist, broadcaster and author of Indian descent.
Hasan has been the host of The Mehdi Hasan Show on Peacock since October 2020 and on MSNBC since February 2021.
In 2015, Hasan moved to Washington, D.C., United States to work full-time for Al Jazeera on UpFront and host the Deconstructed podcast produced by the online publication The Intercept from 2018 to 2020.
Hasan is the co-author of a biography of Ed Miliband and was formerly the political editor of the UK edition of The Huffington Post and the presenter of the Al Jazeera English shows: The Café, Head to Head and UpFront.
Mehdi has a unique way of explaining things while he speaks. His articulation is exceptional while being comprehensible as well. He is a full package when it comes to being a great orator and a magnificent debater. He is an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of budding journalists and speakers.
He has his own way of speaking. But there is a lot to learn from him. I am hereby going to explain four qualities which he possesses and which make him the best debater in the world. He is the man who truly knows how to win a debate and the four factors mentioned below are the reason why!
1.Facts:
Debates which we witness these days are mostly subjective with people only speaking out their opinions loud. However, Mehdi Hasan has a different approach. He uses subjective knowledge to some extent only. His core focus is always on facts and figures. He may be taking part in a debate or hosting a show, he will always come up with concrete facts. Most importantly, all the facts he mentions come from the established sources. This allows him to have a better hold on the debate and win the argument. People listen to his facts keenly and you will hardly ever see him being the second best in any debate. Any aspiring journalist or a speaker has to keep in mind that numbers are magical. If you can play with the facts then you are most likely to win the argument. In a world where the arguments are built upon perceptions, the path towards truth and rationality is in the accumulation of facts.
2. Sense of Humor:
Mehdi Hasan carries an impeccable sense of humor. This man is a legend when it comes to sarcastic responses to his counterpart’s comments. He knows what he is doing. He will always crack a joke or respond sarcastically to grab the attention of the audience. The best part is that his responses are absolutely spontaneous. There was an incident where renowned writer Irshad Manjhi told Mehdi not to behave like a “typical journalist” to which Mehdi responded by saying that, “I have read three of your books but none of them came good”. That would have been a spine-breaking response for anyone. That is how he won the entire audience of Oxford Union. Any speaker or voice coach would agree to me that having a good sense of humor and, most importantly, having extraordinarily spontaneous responses ready every time is huge plus to have in your articulation.
3. Knowledge:
One thing that I have always admired about Mehdi Hasan is the fact that he always carries a vast knowledge of the topic he is supposed to speak on. He even writes down some points and always keeps them handy. He always has a knowledgeable response to the most difficult questions. He masters the topic like and artist and paints pretty pictures while he speaks. His knowledge helps him to think about a topic in different dimensions.
The best thing about Mehdi is that he not only carries a thorough knowledge about his own opinion but he also conducts exhaustive research about the opinion of his opponent. His knowledge speaks in his words and those words quash many rebuttals and questions. He is always ready with any answers thrown to him only because of the knowledge that he carries of the topic.
This is a great lesson to learn for our young generation. This not only stands true for debates but it also stands tall in our daily lives as well. We should never speak about any topic, person or incident until we have a complete knowledge of all.
4. Rationality:
Rationality is something which is elusive in the contemporary journalism. So, it becomes necessary to build rationality in our opinions. Mehdi Hasan teaches us the way to be rationale while being logical as well. He always tries to speak truth during his debates. My most liked quality of Mehdi is that he admires good things and criticizes bad things irrespective of their ideology. Mehdi Hasan is a Shia and he has always been thrown questions related to the “shia-sunni war” prevailing in middle-east. But he never responds to those questions as a shia.
He answers such questions as a true Muslim. He considers himself a Muslim first and wants to live in a world where there is peace. This is true for his opinion on other religions as well. You will never see him speak ill of any religion. He respects them all. But he has the courage to be critical of anything bad happening around the globe. He has been vocal against the terrorism of all sorts. He has denounced all sorts of terrorism including the Muslim terrorist groups like ISIS as well. He speaks in support of shia-sunni unity while he also arraigns the scandals of both the shia-sunni powers by the name of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The courage to acknowledge wrong as wrong and right as right is easier said than done. There will always be bias in our minds. This bias comes naturally. Religion, region, culture, political lineage and even race lead to some sort of bias in our opinion. But Mehdi Hasan has never been like that. He is a Muslim, yet he is critical against cruelties conducted by Muslim nations’ regimes like Saudi Arabia. He absolutely lambasts every political ideology wherever he sees anything wrong going on. We all should be like him.
Mehdi Hasan is an example for modern journalists, speakers and even Muslims. He promotes logic, knowledge, humor, rationale and he also portrays the way a Muslim has to speak when he is thrown under the bus.
(The author is a former Voice Coach at Tech Mahindra)
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