HOW TO SEPERATE TRUTH FROM LEGEND?

Every year around Halloween not only the ghosts en ghouls come out, but also the newly arrived freshmen and their older colleagues for a student ritual which is known as the baptism or “doop”.

There are many differences in the rituals and habits of baptism between countries, cities and even organizations. We’ve all seen the American fraternities in the movies and we’ve all heard horrifying tales of dead students and anal fixations involving live animals. Flemish universities are no strangers to the world of baptizing either. This ritual of passing is as old as any student organization, or for that matter any organization whatsoever. It was a way to protect the integrity of certain groups, a means to allow the new member to show that he’s willing to do some effort to enter his new family. With the democratization of university education, more people were interested in these student clubs and organizations, so the baptisms more and more became public events. Traces of the old ways can still be found in the smaller, regionally based student clubs of Leuven. Evidently, complaints from this corner are never heard, because the students know what they’re up to. No, if ever complaints are voiced, they usually come from the larger, more public, faculty-based student organizations.

A baptism, despite its many, many variations, usually consists of two parts: there is a public freshmen sale and a couple of days later the actual baptism. During the public sale older students can offer money or beer on the new students they prefer. These are then supposed to perform any task asked of them, excluding of course if this interferes with other obligations or any moral codes. This period usually lasts until the baptism itself, when the owners free their freshmen of any duties and allow them to become real students. Now here the real action begins, and with that the possibility of problems. Every student baptism has in common that it is a combination of three elements: physical tests, greasiness and role playing. It is elementary to know however that every student participates out of free will and is allowed to leave the ceremony at any time. The physical part can be compared with a soft version of an army drill. Freshmen have to crawl, duck, jump, do push-ups and so on. During and between these exercises, the students get sprayed and fed with all kinds of greasiness. All this is of course fully edible; it’s only the sight that is usually unpleasant. In the end, you’ll stick and reek like all hell, but after a heavy shower session you’ll be clean as a whistle again. In the eighties and nineties, it was usually in this section that problems arose, because the organizers didn’t limit themselves to just food. Freshmen had to crawl through mud and excrements, bath in organs and perform other such pleasantries. Another classic was rubbing garlic powder in the hair. Things quite often got out of hand, so universities like Leuven and Ghent, together with the student organizations, composed baptism decrees, in which they laid down some ground rules. Police has to be informed about the whereabouts of the baptism groups, things like alcohol, drugs and dead animals are strictly forbidden and students can decide for themselves when they wish to quit. The third factor is the role-playing the baptizing students get into. They act as cold, merciless drill instructors who only want to degrade the poor freshmen. You have to see through the mask, however. This is part of the show which is baptizing, this makes it the more amusing. Because that is what baptisms are all about: meeting new friends in unusual circumstances, getting through some hardship together and coming out at the other end a great experience richer. |