South African Envisions Black, Independent University at Home

To Vas Soni, a black South African with a year-long special scholarship at Harvard, the idea of a black university in his country free of government controls makes his "blood and adrenalin flow."

"I would support such a university not only spiritually, but I would like to have a hand in its creation," Soni says, adding, that education "is the one means" for the liberation of black South Africans.

A black university uncontrolled by the government, Soni said, "would attact South Africa's best black brains and develop education to our needs, not to what the system wants us to learn."

Soni, as a journalist in Durban, holds an M.A.from the University of Durban Westfall, one of six black universities controlled by the South African government.

Although Soni praises the concept of a "free university," he says he is very disappointed with Harvard.

"I came to Harvard quite naive--I thought that given the economic and social disparities throughout the world that Harvard students would discuss those issues," not issues that are much less relevant to the world's problems, he said.

"If Harvard students don't focus on dissidents in the Soviet Union or the boat people or the victims of apartheid, they are not students but just a part of the system, Soni says.

But Soni says students' skepticism of the morality of Harvard's investments in corporations and banks active in South Africa show some observance of principles and morality.

Under South African law, Soni said, any person who speaks out against the political or economic systems of the country is guilty of terrorism and subject to imprisonment.

Soni says his acceptance of the Harvard scholarship does not necessarily imply that he concurs with Harvard's policy toward its investments in corporations active in South Africa.