Thousands of people marked the Feb. 11 release of black South African leader Nelson Mandela, while some lives at NIU are affected more profoundly.

“This is a victory for me and for other South Africans, psychologically,” 34-year-old NIU student Prinsloo Nevhutalu said. “But we’ve heard promises of change before.”

Nevhutalu is from the South African homeland of Venda.

Fourteen years ago, the South African government said “‘Give us six months and we’ll change South Africa.’ That was years ago,” Nevhutalu said.

“The present economic sanctions applied by western countries helped a lot. South Africa cannot survive without the Western world,” he said.

Nevhutalu came to the United States in 1986 as one of 10 South African students funded by Aurora Associates Corporation, of Washington, D.C.

Nevhutalu said he hopes to finish his doctorate degree in biological sciences in December—something few blacks in his country could ever do, he said.

“In my country, one-twelfth of the amount of money spent by the school system per white student is spent on a black child,” Nevhutalu said.

“This lack of quality leads to very few blacks being prepared for and accepted by the universities. Less than one-tenth of one percent go to college,” he said.

The main source of help for South African blacks is white students who have demanded that blacks have equal access to their universities, he said.

Only in recent years have 5 percent of black college students been allowed to attend white universities, he said.

Another South African NIU graduate student asked to remain unindentified because he plans to return to South Africa this summer and felt that speaking against the government might endanger his career in the South African education system.

“I understand that you want to hear what I have to say,” he said,”but you would feel very bad if I was in jailed upon returning to my country.”

Nevhutalu said the student’s fear is justified. “This is not an unusual reaction. They (South African government) use job security as a means of suppression.”

Nevhutalu will return to his country to teach as soon as he graduates. “If I don’t go home, who is going to improve the system?”