On Thursday morning, August 3, 2023, the Basement Cultural Foundation held the second public debate in the Spaces activity for this year. The debate addressed the thesis: “The creative industry is an important economic tributary in the current situation in Yemen… for or against?”
In the debate,two teams faced, each of which includes four participants. At the beginning of the debate, the results of the public vote were as follows:
69% voted with the thesis, while 29% voted against the thesis.
The debate witnessed four confrontations, in which each debater faced his counterpart from the other team. Six separate interventions were allocated to the public, in which attendees participated by presenting their views and observations on the arguments presented during the debate, which varied between heritage, artistic, media and economic topics. After the confrontations between the two teams ended, and to determine the winning team in the debate, the debate facilitator asked the audience to cast their votes in the (post-voting) and the result was as follows:
– The team supporting the thesis: 41%
A loss of 28% of the votes compared to tribal voting
– The team opposing the thesis: 59%
An increase of 30 additional votes compared to the result of the tribal vote
Thus, the team opposing the thesis was declared the winner after it was able to change the number of votes in its favor from 29% of the votes before the debate, to 59% of the votes after the debate.
The event was accompanied by a retrospective exhibition of paintings by artist Ahmed Al-Arifi.