Last year Jafar Alhashime was President of the Catholic Student Association Carolus Magnus despite the fact that he is Muslim and does not drink alcohol. He personally does not find it that strange. “The fact that I could become President just goes to show that you don’t need to drink to belong.” His response to six preconceptions on ideas about life in a student association.

1. The president of a student association comes from a white family of lawyers, has a double first name, and has played hockey his entire life.

“I am living proof that this is not true. My mother originally came from Kazakhstan and my father is a political refugee from Iraq. My father’s family was destroyed by Saddam Hussein’s regime and they fled the country during the Iran-Iraq War. On his way to Europe, my father spent some time in Moscow, where he ended up in hospital with hypothermia. The doctor who treated him introduced him to my mother, who was writing a PhD at the time. They got married. Not much later, in 1992, my father moved to the Netherlands, where he believed they had a more promising future. Six months later my mother was allowed to join him on grounds of family reunification. I was born in 1994.

I can’t say that I suffered growing up in an immigrant family. I had a pretty normal Dutch childhood: we spoke Dutch at home and celebrated Sinterklaas. I did learn about Islam, its main ideas and practical precepts: no smoking, no drinking, no pork and no tattoos. My parents’ attitude was: ‘It’s all very well that we have these beliefs, but you should also be given a chance to develop your own ideas.’ I don’t practice my religion actively. I do follow the precepts though, partly for religious reasons, and partly because I got used to it and it feels good. Do I find it difficult? Not at all. It helps that since I have never tasted alcohol, I have no idea what I’m missing. I never think: “I would love a beer right now!”

2. Student associations are all about drinking, partying and sex.

“I won’t deny that there is drinking at the association. The beer is cheap and students like it. But it’s certainly not the case that we expect our members to drink, or that it is considered to be socially desirable. The fact that I could become president goes to show that you don’t have to drink to belong. This is something I checked before I signed up. It was not a problem, they said. I still remember the first time I had to refuse a beer. A senior member came up to me after the hazing period and offered me a beer. I refused and told him the reason why. I think he was a bit surprised, but he went off to get me a Coca-Cola and that was the end of it. No one has ever made any nasty comments, although my close friends sometimes joke about it. I believe that this shows that you don’t need alcohol to belong in a student association. As for sex, I honestly couldn’t say whether there is more of it within a student association than elsewhere.

A student association allows you to meet lots of people, so you are quite likely to meet someone you fancy. I don’t find it surprising that there are many relationships within our association. I am single myself, although not by conscious choice. Will my future girlfriend have to be a member of Carolus Magnus? Of course not. Nor do I care whether she is a Muslim or whether she drinks. That’s up to her.”

3. Carolus Magnus is home to all Nijmegen ‘frats’.

 “I understand why people would think that, and I won’t deny it: we do have a lot of members who like to dress more formally. But they are not in the majority. The idea that all Carolus Magnus members are frats is mostly propagated by people who have never attended one of our parties and who only know us from a distance. It’s a bit like Dutch people thinking that all Chinese people look alike, and vice versa. As soon as you get to know each other, you can see the variety. We have our own building a few kilometres from the campus and as a rule our association building is closed to non-members. As a result some people never get to know us. But if you attend one of our open parties, you’ll soon discover that our members are very diverse. We are much more than a collection of frats with a side parting and rich parents.”

4. Hazing is hell on earth.

“There are such wild stories going around about hazing. People ask lots of questions about it during the introduction week. The wildest rumour I ever heard was that you get a small chick at the start of the hazing period and that at the end of the week you have to smash it against the wall. How crazy can you get?

“We are quite an open association, but hazing is an internal tradition that is kept secret from the outside world. Some members worry about their health, so we tell them what precautions we take to make sure that everything goes well. We don’t talk about the programme, though, except to say that we are quite sure they will make it to the end. You may find this hard to believe, but hazing can also be fun. But if we tell people beforehand what we will be doing, it takes away all the fun. Hazing is much better organised than people think. We have never had any excesses. I know that this is an idea that’s going around, but members look back on it later with a smile: they don’t die, and nothing bad happens to them.”

5. Carolus Magnus and Ovum Novum are arch-enemies.

“Every year we compete for members during the introduction week. We have a long tradition as the largest student association of Nijmegen, and we intend to keep it that way. It’s not only a question of prestige. The more members, the more fun. Our budget grows and we have a lot more opportunities without having to ask our members to contribute additional funds.” Are you referring to last winter’s assault? (Two members of Carolus Magnus were badly beaten by a member of Ovum Novum, eds.) It was certainly talked about then. But everybody sees it as an unfortunate excess, which could just as well have happened independently of the associations. Clearly someone lost it, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the fact that the victims were members of a different association. At least, that’s my assumption. You can settle rivalry in a number of ways, but not in that way.

A few times a year, members of one association try to break in and take over the other association’s building. They nearly always fail. That’s all there is to it. It’s all a very innocent part of student life.”

6. Former members form an old boys’ network; They help each other for the rest of their lives.

“The outside world seems to believe that once you become a member of a student association, you don’t even have to have high grades anymore to become a partner in some fancy firm on the Zuidas. But that’s not how it works. As a former member you have to earn your place like anybody else. It is, however, true that you may be at an advantage if you run into someone from the association while applying for jobs. Even if you don’t know them personally, it will give you something to talk about, to break the ice.”

“I am not yet sure where my personal ambitions lie. I am studying law, but after my year as president I want to travel first. Then I would like to do two internships: one in a large law firm on the Zuidas and one in a smaller company to find out where I feel more at home. Then I plan to do a Master’s. In the end I might end up working in a top law firm or in a small firm in Wijchen. Who knows?”