They're Not Talking

Erasmus, who studied there from 1517 to 1521, would be hard put to understand all the pulling and hauling that is going on these days at his alma mater, the University of Louvain. In his day, the school's common language was Latin. Now the university is split into French-speaking and Flemish-speaking halves, and the division is so bitter that the two halves are not talk ing to each other.

The split, reflecting the national linguistic quarrels, goes back to the revolution of 1830, after which the area now called Belgium--half French (Wallonia), half Dutch (Flanders)--was carved into a country. The literate, liberal French-speaking Walloons in the south dominated Louvain and built it into a university of international reputation ranking with Oxford and the top Roman Catholic University in the world. At the recent Vatican Council, the 13-man delegation of theological experts from Louvain was influential enough to spawn such wisecracks as "Vatican II? No, Louvain I."

Oppressed Majority. After World War II, the conservative Flemish farmers in the north began to demand their innings, arguing that they had long been an oppressed majority (5,250,000 to 4,000,000). In 1962, the Flemish succeeded in legislating a line across the country running from just north of Liege across just south of Brussels to a point on the French-Belgian border. The language north of the line (except in Brussels, which is officially bilingual) is officially Flemish; to the south, it is French.

The illustrious University of Louvain, which did not offer so much as a single course in Flemish until 1932, is ten miles inside Flemish "territory." And with all the fervor of those who feel they have been snubbed for centuries, the Flemish have succeeded during the past few years in cutting the school into linguistic divisions just as rigid as the nation's--even to separate budgets for the next academic year.

For the hotter Flemish heads, even this is not enough. A wall near Louvain's medical school is daubed with big red letters: WALEN BUITEN (Walloons Go Home). The extremists are demanding nothing less than moving the French half of Louvain into Wallonia. FlemishWalloon bitterness has caused occasional riots at the school.

Dividing Baby? Like King Solomon's legendary decision ordering the baby divided between the contending women, this would be no solution at all. The French faction would not think of accepting it without being guaranteed equal facilities--an item estimated to cost a minimum of $500 million. Even if this were miraculously arranged, the massive international prestige of Louvain would be maimed. Though both the Flemish-and French-speaking faculties of the university are equally eminent, most of the 2,000 foreign students (out of a total enrollment of 20,000) speak French rather than Flemish.

In his highceilinged, red-curtained office, Louvain's Rector Magnificus, The Most Rev. Albert Descamps, plays for time. "There will be no spectacular solution," he said last week. "There will be accommodations, arrangements. I think we will continue with unity at the top and more and more division at the bottom." To Economics Professor Jacques Dreze, a member of a ten-man commission set up by the university two months ago to study the issue, the future of Louvain depends on the political future of Belgium, and he is gloomy on grounds that the aspirations of cultural or racial communities are generally irreversible.

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