The year was 1998. The setting was Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok—a place where the humidity is thick enough to chew and the intellectual pretension is even thicker. I was there representing Universiti Putra Malaysia, a wide-eyed novice in the shark tank of the All-Asian Intervarsity Debating Championship. I expected to find logic, I expected to find strategy. Instead, I found a man who looked like he’d been sent by Providence to tell the rest of us that we were being monumentally boring.

That man was Omar Salahuddin Abdullah.

In the drab, grey world of competitive debating—a “sport” populated largely by people who find excitement in the footnotes of a trade treaty—Omar was a technicolor explosion. He wasn’t just an adjudicator; he was an Emeritus Member of the World Universities Debating Council, which is basically the equivalent of being a Jedi Master, but with better tailoring and a much sharper tongue.

Omar became my guru. But more importantly, he became a father figure who looked at my rhetorical flourishes and, instead of telling me to “stick to the data,” told me to lean into the chaos.

You see, modern debating has become a clinical, soul-sucking wasteland. It’s a “boring enterprise” run by spreadsheet-obsessed robots who think that speaking at 400 words per minute—a technique known as ‘spreading’—is a substitute for having an actual personality. It’s matter over manner. It’s the equivalent of watching a man read a washing machine manual while standing on a chair. It’s technically “information,” but it makes you want to claw your eyes out.

Omar hated this. He didn’t just hate it; he treated it like a personal insult to the gods of oratory. He championed Manner. He understood that if you’re going to force people to listen to you talk about international relations for seven minutes, the least you can do is not make them wish for a sudden, localized meteor strike.

He used to lament the relegation of the art form into this data-dumping exercise. To Omar, a debater without manner, charm, and a sense of occasion—was just a noisy calculator. He was the only man I knew who could tell you that your argument was structurally equivalent to a damp cardboard box, yet make you feel like you’d just received a blessing from the Pope.

As a mentor, Omar was less “soft hugs and participation trophies” and more “intellectual drill sergeant with a refined palate.” He taught me that manner wasn’t just about wearing a nice tie; it was about the moral obligation to be interesting. He viewed the “matter-only” crowd as a bunch of joyless accountants who had hijacked the podium.

Omar was a man who understood that human beings are moved by stories, by rhythm, and by the sheer, unadulterated gall of a well-placed pause. He was the High Priest of the Podium, and his gospel was simple: If you haven’t made the audience laugh, cry, or question their entire existence by the time you sit down, you’ve failed. Winning was just a bonus. 

To me, he was more than just a legendary adjudicator. He was the father figure I needed in a circuit that often felt like a cold, intellectual vacuum. He championed the importance of character. In a world of “win at all costs,” Omar was there to remind us that winning without grace was actually just losing in a louder suit.

He watched me grow from that 1998 Bangkok debut into whatever opinionated monster I am today. And if I have a willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom—if I’m happy to stand up and tell a room full of “experts” that they’re being tedious—it’s because Omar gave me the permission to do so. He taught me that being “right” is easy, but being “resonant” is an art.

Omar Salahuddin Abdullah has left the building, and frankly, the building is a lot quieter and significantly more dull for it. The World Universities Debating Council has lost its Emeritus, and I have lost a friend.

The debating world will continue to churn out its boring, matter-heavy robots. They will continue to cite obscure treaties and speak with the charisma of a frozen turnip. But for those of us who were fortunate to seat at the feet of the Guru, we know better. We know that the matter is just the skeleton. The manner? That’s the soul.

Rest in peace, Omar. I’ll try to keep the “boring enterprise” at bay, but without you there to lead the charge, it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder.