FATIMA MEER: TIRELESS ACADEMIC AND ACTIVIST
Sahistoryonline records Fatima Meer as born in Grey Street in 1928, to Moosa Meer, editor and publisher of Indian Views [1914-1965], and Rachel Farrel.
She was the second of nine children and their upbringing was not ordinary, and certainly unlike that of most contemporary Muslims. Her mother, Rachel, was an orphan of Jewish and Portuguese descent, but she converted to Islam and took the name Amina.
Her political activism was ignited in 1946 when the Passive Resistance campaign was inaugurated. In 1949 Durban and the country was shaken by the outbreak of Indo-african race riots. Shortly after the riots, she threw herself into community work to improve race relations between Indians and Africans in Durban. She helped organise Indian and African women under the banner of the Durban and District Women's League. Meer became Secretary of the League and Bertha Mkhize (president of the ANC Women's League) became the Chairperson. This was the first women’s organisation with joint Indian and African membership. The League organised a crèche and distributed milk in the large shanty town, Cato Manor. The race riots was one of the turning points in Fatima’s life, and she spent the better part of her life working tirelessly to improve race relations, promoting justice, reconciliation and non-violent action.
She married her first cousin, Ismail Meer, in 1950. In 1952 she was amongst those banned under the new Suppression of Communism Act.
The role that Fatima and her husband played in cementing the relationship between the Indian and African National Congress and with people such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Chief Albert Luthuli, is one of the enduring stories of the liberation movement. In 1955 Meer became a founding member of the Federation of South African Women, the Women’s organisation that organised the famous Anti-pass March on the Union Buildings in Pretoria in 1956.
During the 1970s she was one of the leading antiapartheid voices in the country. At this time – even though she faced strong opposition from her family and Indian Congress colleagues – she began to embrace the Black Consciousness ideology of the South African Student Organisation (SASO), led by Steve Biko. In 1972 she founded the Institute of Black Research (IBR) which became the leading Black-run research institution, publishing house and educational and welfare NGO in the country.
In 1994 she declined a seat in parliament because of her interest in non-governmental work. She has produced over forty books some as author, some as editor and some as publisher including the celebrated biography of Nelson Mandela.
She passed away on 13 March 2010 at age 81.