Students' Protests Surprise Suzman

Helen Suzman, a member of the opposition party of the South African Parliament, says the "damned nerve" of Harvard students who called her a "white puppet" and demonstrated while she spoke Tudesday at the Kennedy School of Government surprises her.

"I've spent all my life fighting the government, and not from the comfort of 9000 miles away," the silver-haired reformer says.

A member of the Progressive Federal Party for more than 25 years, Suzman says Western corporations "must stay and be an influence for the positive good" in South Africa by adhering to the Sullivan principles, guidelines proposed by the Rev. Leon Sullivan regulating hiring and employment practices.

Comparing her country to the U.S., Suzman says "South Africa has got to get back to Square One," an open society without compulsory segregation or integration, before any affirmative action programs can be implemented. "We can't even anticipate something like busing--it's a hopeless proposition at this stage."

Emeka Kalu Ezra '81, one of about 30 demonstrators at her speech, says Suzman's program would bring "cosmetic changes" without making any real difference to the black majority.

"Harvard is willing to give the podium to these types of people, but they'll never invite a legitimate representative of the blacks," Ezra adds.

Aggrey J. Kaalaste, a black South African news editor and Nieman Fellow, says that although "Suzman has fought relentlessly and sincerely against the existing government," he finds her approval of progressive reforms in education and land tenure "misleading and even dangerous because the basic issues that are making blacks unhappy have not even been touched."

Suzman says she does not pretend to speak for blacks, but that she has challenged every piece of apartheid legislation brought before Parliament.

"Because of my position, I'm able to intervene on behalf of detainees and help people enmeshed in pass-law violations," she says, adding that she successfully lobbied to prevent the deportation of 30,000 illegally employed blacks.

But Extra, who is from South Africa, says that the South African government would not allow Suzman to stay in the Parliamentary opposition if she were not a "puppet."

The 62-year-old representative attributes her success at avoiding arrest or exile to the "moral immunity" that comes with being an elected member of Parliament. She adds that supporters of apartheid have called her the "choice of everything that is unpatriotic and anti-South African." She comments: "I get hell in Parliament, but then I expect it...I'm very provocative.