South African Lambasts Internships

An exiled Black South African and visiting scholar at Currier House last night attacked a University-sponsored internship program to aid his embattled countrymen, saying it could not have any positive impact.

Addressing more than 30 members of the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC), Moses Nkondo said, "The program is doomed to be ineffective at best and harmful at worst."

A former professor at a Black university in the apartheid state, Nkonodo was exiled 12 years ago for the opinions he expressed in his book on the education system in South Africa.

Citing the lack of freedom in Black South African university appointment, tenure and admissions policies, Nkondo said that the government spends about $20 on the education of a Black child, as compared to $200 on a white child.

Nkondo said that because of this discrepancy, Black and white South African students "move in two completely different orbits which will never meet."

The basic premise of the South African government "is preserving and safeguarding the white race," said Nkonodo. "How can the internship program ever hope to modernize or improve such a system?"

Saying that the system "violates the fundamental principle of free principles," Nkondo asked, "How can you as a Harvard intern make an impact?"

"You can never make a difference," he answered.

Instead, Nkondo advocated that Harvard invest its money and efforts into changing the nature of the South African government. "If you want to help us, address the question of the redistribution of power," he said. Helping in any other way will "only reinforce racism," Nkondo added.

But Nkondo said he thought that Harvard administrators were not being deliberately malicious. "Bok tends to give the initiative to the individual will," he said. In so doing, Nkonodo said, "Bok is overlooking the overwhelming power of the structure of South Africa."