Fatima Meer
1928 -

Fatima Meer was born in Grey Street, Durban on the 28 of August 1928.Her father, Moosa Meer was the editor of the Indian Views, a weekly newspaper aimed at Gujarati-speaking Muslim communities. Fatima was brought up in an atmosphere that was highly conscious of racial discrimination and that shaped her into a tireless defender of the oppressed. She attended the Durban Indian Girls High School and subsequently went to the University of Natal where she completed a Masters degree in Sociology.

From 1946 to 1948, Indians in South Africa engaged in the Passive Resistance campaign against apartheid. Fatima, who joined the campaign, established the Student Passive Resistance Committee, where she embarked on a career as an anti-apartheid campaigner. She helped establish the Durban districts Women’s League to build alliances between Africans and Indians, as a result of the race riots that occurred between the two groups in 1949. The organisation built a crèche, distributed milk and fought the arrests of African women with passes.

When the National Party came to power in 1948, imposing the policy of apartheid, Fatima’s involvement increased and she spoke publicly against apartheid. Her activities led to her banning in 1952, which excluded her from all public gatherings and from being published. She became a founding member of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) that spearheaded the historical women’s march to the Union Buildings that occurred on the 9th of August 1956.

During the 1960s, when the majority of activists were being detained without trial, she organised night vigils and in the 1970s when the Black Consciousness Movement was starting to dominate, she was again banned and was subsequently detained for trying to organise a rally with Steve Biko. Shortly after her release in 1976, Fatima survived an assassination attempt, when her house was petrol bombed. Her son, Rashid was forced into exile in the same year, making this a difficult time for Fatima, as she was not to see him for a decade.

From the 1980s to the 1990s, Fatima worked with NGO’s, fighting for the rights of shack-dwellers and rural migrants. She headed the Natal Education Trust, which built schools in Umlazi, Port Shepstone and Inanda; established the Tembalihle Tutorial College in Phoenix and a Crafts Center. These projects were shut down in 1982 when Fatima was detained for contravening a banning order. Fatima established a string of educational institutions that were aimed at improving the quality of education for Africans.

She has published more than forty books on a wide variety of subjects, her major publications include: Portrait of Indian South Africans; Apprenticeship of a Mahatma; Race and Suicide in South Africa; Documents of Indentured Labour; Higher than Hope; The South African Gandhi; Resistance in the Townships; Apartheid our Picture; Passive Resistance amongst others. Fatima has also won herself numerous wards for her activities, to name a few: Union of South African Journalists in 1975; Imam Abdullah Haroon Award for the Struggle against Oppression and Racial Discrimination in 1990; Vishwa Gurjari Award for Contribution to Human Rights in 1994 and “Top 100 Women Who Shook South Africa” in 1999.

Fatima continues with her work with Non-governmental bodies, however she has served in a number of advisory positions for the government. She is also a member of Jubilee 2000, that was formed to get the Third World Debt cancelled. The past few years have been difficult for Fathima, who has since lost both her husband (Ismael) and son (Rashid). She has also suffered several heart attacks, yet she remains a fighter and a champion of the under classes.