Fraternicide

Heaven extraordinarily wept this week. Was it crying over the looming passage of the RH bill? (A militant friend remarked that if that were so, then it may have been tears of joy). Environmental degradation perhaps? Or was it condoling and commiserating with the family of the latest hazing victim, Marc Andre Marcos? Our fraternicide blurb last Saturday elicited several reactions including this thought-full reflection from a current law student whose name and school I have chosen to withhold.

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Law school life can be a tough, grueling, and downright terrifying experience, especially in one’s first year. Now, speaking as a third year law student, I can tell you that — although the workload did increase in the years that followed — no year has left such an indelible imprint on my mind and memory than that first.

Perhaps it is understandable then why so many shipwrecked students struggling for direction in those early days of Freshman fear and confusion turned to fraternities for guidance. Nihil novi sub sole. Fraternities have been around since the days of the Mithraic Mysteries of ancient Rome.

It is human nature to bond together in times of adversity and it is but logical that those bonded together would take the next step of organizing themselves into some sort of community. But as fraternities grew, they became living, breathing entities in their own right — and just like any living organism, they need to be fed to stay alive. Feeding comes in the form of recruitment.

The highly competitive environment created by professional courses such as law, medicine, engineering, etc. serve as fertile breeding grounds for recruitment as most first year students are so terrified of flunking that they would turn to any organization that assures them of an advantage over their peers.

In my first year, I was “courted” by a few fraternities. I was brought to dinners by people posing as my friends and who wished to “join at the same time as me” who later turned out to already be members planted for recruitment. Suddenly, everyone was concerned about how I was doing in school and asking if they could help.

However, I still had many questions I needed answered before I pledged myself to an organization for life. More questions than a secret society was probably used to. What were their values? Were they in line with my own? What about the hazing related deaths I had heard about? All will be revealed once you join they told me.

Eventually I was convinced to undergo an initiation period which would last a few months wherein I would be exposed to different aspects of the organization. Being suspicious of the implications, I made it clear that I was still undecided and they assured me I could back out at any time during the process. Despite my initial disappointment with the inconsistencies displayed both by the actions and deeds of some of their members, I stuck with the initiation in order to make an informed decision before deciding whether to join or not. I was called a slave, was beaten and slapped, made to undergo demeaning acts such as “golfing” — wherein one is made to push a 10-centavo coin across the floor of a crowded law office — and weathered ridicule and demoralization leading up to the grand finale, the “picnic” (the final hazing ritual).

After many weeks of this exposure I decided that it was not for me. Although I had high hopes for the fraternity as a concept, I found that the real life application of this type of organization left much to be desired. In my own research, I realized that many members joined for the wrong reasons. Some told me they joined to “get chicks,” others because it made them feel “cool.” Some felt they needed the reviewers and assistance while others wanted the connections outside of school.

Unfortunately, none joined for the idealism of having a community of students helping other students. Instead, it seems that frats have devolved into little more than glorified gangs as the recent bar bombings and hazing homicides have shown. I personally stood witness to a near gang war when the “brod” of one rival frat attacked the boyfriend of my friend for no apparent reason. That kind of blind obedience makes me sick.

As soon as I decided not to push through, I was told that I would be a “marked man”. (A far cry from what I was told originally, that I could “leave anytime, no hard feelings.”) When that tactic didn’t work they turned to guilt. My batchmates would be hit harder and longer if I “abandoned” them before the picnic. I couldn’t believe that they would use such a cheap trick to coerce me into joining so I said I would be willing to undergo their hazing and take the beating in full if it meant my batchmates would not suffer for my leaving but that, after it was over, I still did not want to be a part of their frat. They didn’t take me up on my offer.

As expected, as soon as I left all my so-called “friends” evaporated. I was ostracized. I didn’t care though. It was the price I knew I would have to be willing to pay. Truth to be told, I wanted to like the frat. I wanted to believe in a brotherhood of aspiring lawyers sticking together through thick and thin, helping one another become the best lawyers they could be. But in the end, I could not reconcile what I wished with what was and so I had to turn them down.

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“A brother is a friend God gave you; a friend is a brother your heart chose for you”     —Proverb

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