Fatima Meer facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Fatima Meer
Born	(1928-08-12)12 August 1928 Durban, Natal, South Africa
Died	12 March 2010(2010-03-12) (aged 81) Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province
Resting place	Brooke Street Cemetery, Durban
Alma mater	University of Natal
Occupation	Writer and academic
Notable work	Higher Than Hope
Title	Professor
Spouse(s)	Ismail Chota Meer
Children	3

Fatima Meer was a brave South African woman. She fought against apartheid, a cruel system that treated people unfairly because of their race. She was born on August 12, 1928, and passed away on March 12, 2010. Fatima Meer was also a talented writer, a university professor, and a filmmaker.

Early Life and Education

Fatima Meer was born in Durban, South Africa. Her family was middle-class and had nine children. Her father, Moosa Ismail Meer, edited a newspaper called The Indian Views. He taught her about the unfair racial discrimination in the country. Her mother, Rachel Farrell, was her father's second wife. She was an orphan of Jewish and Portuguese background who became Muslim and changed her name to Amina.

When she was 16 in 1944, she helped raise money for people suffering from famine in Bengal, India. She finished school at the Durban Indian Girls High School. While still a student, she helped students create the Student Passive Resistance Committee. This group collected money for the Indian community's fight against unfair laws from 1946 to 1948. Through this committee, she met important leaders like Yusuf Dadoo, Monty Naicker, and Kesaveloo Goonam.

She studied at the University of the Witwatersrand for a year. Later, she went to the University of Natal. She earned a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Sociology there.

Fighting for Justice

Meer and Kesaveloo Goonam were the first women elected to lead the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in 1950. She helped start the Durban and District Women's League on October 4, 1952. This group of 70 women aimed to build friendships between African and Indian people. This was important after the race riots between the two groups in 1949. Bertha Mkhize became the chairperson and Meer became the secretary.

The league helped organize childcare and gave out milk in Cato Manor. They also raised money for people affected by a tornado in Springs. African families lost their homes. They also collected £4000 for flood victims in Sea Cow Lake.

Standing Up to Apartheid

After the National Party came to power in 1948, they started the system of apartheid. This meant people were separated and treated differently based on their race. Fatima Meer's activism grew stronger. Because of her work, she was "banned" for three years in 1952. This meant she could not attend meetings or be quoted in the media.

She helped create the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) on April 17, 1954. This group led the famous Women's March on August 9, 1956, in Pretoria. Meer was one of the leaders of this march. In the same year, she helped organize a committee to raise money for bail. This money supported families of Natal political leaders who were facing a treason trial.

In the 1960s, she organized night vigils outside Durban prison. These protests were against the mass detention of anti-apartheid activists without trial. Fatima Meer also helped organize a week-long vigil at the Gandhi Settlement in Phoenix. The leader of this vigil was Sushila Gandhi. During the 1970s, she started to support the Black Consciousness Movement with the South African Students' Organisation (SASO), led by Steve Biko.

Facing Challenges

In 1975, Fatima Meer co-founded the Black Women's Federation (BWF) with Winnie Mandela. Meer became the first president of this organization. A year later, she was banned again for five years. This ban came after she spoke at a Black Studies Programme meeting. Her speech was called "Twenty-Five Years of Apartheid Rule."

In June 1976, after the Soweto Uprisings, 11 women from the BWF were arrested. They were held alone in prison at Fort Prison in Johannesburg. Fatima Meer narrowly survived an attack shortly after her release in 1976. She was shot at her home in Durban but was not hurt. Her son, Rashid, had to leave the country that same year. She was attacked again later.

During the 1980s, Meer started the Co-ordinating Committee of Black Ratepayers Organisations. This group fought against unfair treatment of black townships by the Durban municipality. In 1994, she turned down a seat in parliament. She preferred to continue her non-governmental work. In May 1999, Fatima founded the Concerned Citizens’ Group (CCG). This group encouraged Indian people not to vote for white parties in the next election.

She strongly supported the Iranian Revolution and boycotted Salman Rushdie's trip to South Africa in 1998. She was involved in protests against the unfair treatment of Palestinian people. She also protested the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. She founded Jubilee 2000 to campaign for canceling the debts of poor countries.

Helping Communities

Fatima Meer did a lot of charity work. In 1969, she published her book Portrait of Indian South Africans. She gave all the money from its sales to the Gandhi Settlement. This money helped build the Gandhi Museum and Clinic. She helped rescue 10,000 Indian flood victims at Tin Town, near the Umgeni River. Meer built temporary tent homes and organized food and clothing. Later, she helped them get permanent homes in Phoenix.

Meer also founded and led the Natal Education Trust. This trust collected money from the Indian community to build schools in Umlazi, Port Shepstone, and Inanda. In 1979, she founded Tembalishe Tutorial College at Gandhi's Phoenix home. This college secretly taught black people secretarial skills. A Crafts Centre was also set up at the Settlement. It taught screen printing, sewing, embroidery, and knitting to unemployed people. Both the college and the crafts center closed in 1982. This happened after Fatima was detained for breaking her banning order.

During the 1980s, she arranged scholarships for ten students to study in the United States. She also helped the "SAVE OUR HOMES COMMITTEE." This group was started by the Coloured community of Sparks Estate. They sought justice for people whose homes were threatened by the Durban Municipality. They successfully gained compensation. With the help of Indira Gandhi, she organized scholarships for South African students to study medicine and politics in India. The IBR (Institute for Black Research) offered tutorial programs to improve low pass rates for high school exams. Phambili High was founded in 1986 for African students.

In 1992, Fatima Meer founded the Clare Estate Environment Group. This group helped people living in shacks and rural migrants. These people had no rights in urban areas and needed clean water, sanitation, and proper housing. The Khanyisa School Project was founded in 1993. It was a preparatory school for underprivileged African children before they went to formal school. She also founded Khanya Women's Skills Training Centre in 1996. This center taught 150 Black women pattern-cutting, sewing, adult literacy, and business management.

Personal Life

Fatima Meer married her first cousin, Ismail Meer, in 1950. This was common in her community. Ismail Meer was a well-known lawyer and anti-apartheid activist. He was an active member of the KwaZulu-Natal ANC provincial legislature. In the 1960s, he was arrested and charged with treason, along with Nelson Mandela and other activists. In 2000, Fatima Meer's son, Rashid, died in a car accident. She is survived by her two daughters, Shehnaaz, a judge, and Shamin, a social science consultant.

Academic and Writer

Meer became a sociology lecturer at the University of Natal from 1956 to 1988. She was the first non-white person to hold that position. She was also a visiting professor at several universities abroad. Meer became a fellow of the London School of Economics. She received three honorary doctorates. She received an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from Swarthmore College (1984). She also received one in Humane Letters from Bennet College in the United States (1994). Later, she received an Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from Natal University in South Africa (1998).

She founded the Institute for Black Research (IBR) in 1972. This became a research and publishing institution and an educational non-governmental organization (NGO).

Notable Works

Books

• Portrait of Indian South Africans (1969)
• The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma (1970)
• Towards Understanding Iran Today (1985)
• Resistance in the Townships (1989)
• Higher than Hope (1990) (This was the first authorized biography of Nelson Mandela. It was translated into 13 languages.)
• The South African Gandhi: The Speeches and Writings of M.K. Gandhi (1996)
• Passive Resistance, 1946: A Selection of Documents (1996)
• Fatima Meer: Memories of Love and Struggle (2010)

Television

• Screenwriter, The Making of the Mahatma. This was a Shyam Benegal film based on her book The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. India and South Africa co-produced the film.

Awards and Honours

• Union of South African Journalists Award (1975)
• Imal Abdullah Haroon Award for the Struggle against Oppression and Racial Discrimination (1990)
• Vishwa Gurjari Award for Contribution to Human Rights (1994)
• Top 100 Women Who Shook South Africa list (1999)
• #45 Top 100 Great South Africans (2004)
• South African National Order: Order for Meritorious Service (2009)
• The Order of Luthuli in Silver (2017)

Death and Legacy

Fatima Meer passed away at St. Augustine's Hospital in Durban on March 12, 2010. She was 81 years old. She died from a stroke she suffered two weeks earlier. A collection of Fatima Meer’s political and academic writings, called Voices of Liberation, was published in 2019. Her paintings and drawings have been shown at Constitutional Hill since August 2017.

Images for kids

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  Fatima Meer, a South African activist and writer.

See also

• List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid