Uppsala student s Valborg – drunken indignity and striking privilege
Originally a medieval celebration on the feast day of St. Walpurga, Valborg in Sweden today is better understood as a festive nod to the coming of spring. But by the time the snow storm set in at nightfall this year, students were far too inebriated to notice the optimism of the occasion.
Indeed, some were literally unconscious to the irony. I discovered my boyfriend’s housemate on the floor slumped, head down, against the kitchen cupboard. Her solitary occupation of the kitchen means we can only assume her “friends” had dropped her home before dashing to their next party. I should not have been so terrified at the sight of her collapsing again to the floor as she attempted to crawl to her room; we had, after all, just left my building: populated by booze-fuelled parties, sick in the stairwell along with human excrement (you did read that correctly).
The University seems to turn a blind-eye to this day of alcohol abuse. Remarkably, student drinking kicks-off in their own backyard: Outside the Ekonomikum building when most people are eating their Coco Pops. Merrymakers are allowed to saturate this park, eventually leaving behind them a carpet of beer cans and empty Champagne bottles – I saw men-of-colour picking up this “white trash” the following morning.
It is this kind of privilege that strikes me, as an international student. Outside almost every supermarket entrance sits a homeless Roma Romanian begging for coins. Individuals ignored as students (myself included) pass them to buy cigarettes and BBQ food in preparation for the day’s self-indulgence. Worse still, is the “Champagnegalopp” – (in)famously held by several nations – when students pay 150 kronor plus only to throw this luxury tipple over one another for mere amusement. A Google tells me this sum would also enable WaterAid to buy a well, giving people access to clean water for the first time. Wouldn’t it be better to spend the money on that next year?
But the point is not – as Peter Singer has argued – to become a “moral saint”, giving everything you have to the less advantaged and never having fun. Ever. Fundamentally, Valborg – like most Swedish traditions – is about community spirit. It was a time for villagers to gather around the bonfire and sing joyously, heralding the warmer weather. Most of us have lost a sense of village community, becoming anonymous amidst city life in the globalised world. What’s more, in Uppsala, the student body exists separated from the locals who typically refer to us as “wild kids”. Who can blame them when they so often see drunken students up to antics on the city streets, probably in fancy dress.
The point then is about the potential of Valborg. The profits made by the Nations’ week long events could be donated to charity. The energy that collects in the Ekonomikum park could be channelled positively if student activists had stalls, inspiring students to learn and campaign on the things they care about. Creativity and culture – not drunken indignity – could decorate the streets with student arts performances. It might also encourage locals to integrate with the scene, to be proud of their student population’s visionaries, entrepreneurs and music-makers.
Valborg can still be a day for community spirit. We may have lost the village life of this tradition but that just means our sense of community has grown, to global proportions. Students have the power to make a Valborg that unites the Uppsala community, benefits others and is fun Wouldn’t we feel great if Valborg’s festivities next year also bought water wells thousands of miles away?
