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Swarthmore Collegeibiilletin June 1984 Mmsmmm Wm M M ¡1 ¡¡8 ! I M Wmmmwfm Swarthmore CollegeiBiilletin June 1984 mmsmmm Wm m m ¡1 ¡¡8 ! i m WmmMwfm ociologist Fatima Meer, a South African of Indian Sextraction, first spoke publicly against apartheid at 17. She advocates “passive resistance,” although she has been officially silenced twice, jailed, and nearly assassinated. Fighting, apartheid In South Africa today 4.5 million whites Fatima Meer’s soft voice caresses the word: without struggle to retain control of a country “Unbanned.” She leans forward eagerly and populated by 28 million blacks, coloreds, her eyes shine as she struggles to convey and Asiatics. The country’s recent history is what it means to be free to live and work marked by a succession of repres­ openly once again in her home­ fear or sive laws and political protests. land, South Africa, after seven Since the conservative National­ years of officially enforced si­ ist Party came to power in the lence. “I feel almost as though the unhappiness late 1940s, it has enacted: laws sky’s the limit. Unbanned!” establishing separate “homelands” for blacks This gentle, matronly woman of East shoulder. Had she been there first, Meer Indian extraction, who is South Africa’s says, the blast would have struck her in the and segregated group living areas for Indians highest ranking non-white academic, hardly head. No one was ever arrested for the and coloreds, which caused the uprooting and impoverishment of literally millions of fits the stereotype of a national security attack, although Meer believes the same people; laws requiring separate public facil­ threat. Yet, for seven years she was not people were responsible for the murder three allowed to speak publicly, to publish so weeks later of her close friend Richard ities for whites and non-whites; bans on racial mixing; and curbs on freedom of much as a drawing, to see more than one Turner, a white colleague at the University person at a time outside of her own family, of Natal. Turner also was banned at the time speech and assembly in the face of repeated or to leave Durban’s Indian quarter. Her for his opposition to apartheid. outbreaks of political protest and violence. Although born in Durban of Indian scholarly books were removed from library Since 1952 Meer has been banned twice parents, Meer follows the custom, adopted shelves and she had to get official permission and arrested and tried twice for violating her by South Africa’s non-white dissidents in the to continue teaching and even to talk to her banning orders. She also was detained with­ 1970s, of referring to herself as black. Her husband. out trial for five months following the father was a shop assistant whose passion for Last July the South African government Soweto ghetto uprising in 1976. Last year, writing protest letters led him into journal­ finally lifted its ban against her and about only a few weeks after her second seven-year ism and, eventually, into becoming the 100 other political dissidents. A few months banning term was lifted, Meer joined in a owner and editor of Indian Views, one of later she was granted an unrestricted one- protest against South Africa’s new consti­ South Africa’s two oldest Indian news­ year passport, allowing Meer to come to tution and was arrested again. She faces trial Swarthmore as a Cornell Visiting Professor on charges stemming from that arrest when papers. Meer gave her first political speech when to lecture on South Africa during spring she returns to South Africa this summer. she was a 17-year-old school girl. She spoke semester. She was awarded an honorary “They are trying to co-opt the Indians and at a mass political rally in 1946 during the doctorate by the Board of Managers at coloreds into the apartheid system,” Meer Indian Passive Resistance campaign oppos­ commencement ceremonies May 28. says of the new constitution. Separate “mini­ ing new laws legitimizing the segregation of Meer is a professor of sociology at the parliaments” for South Africa’s Indian and South Africa’s Indian population. Six years University of Natal, a university for white colored minorities are mandated by the new later, Meer was banned for seven years students in Durban. There she has done constitution. The government extols the because she and her husband, Ismail Meer, a extensive research on South Africa’s black, measure as a liberal reform effort, but Meer Durban attorney, were active in the “Defi­ Indian, and “colored” (mixed blood) popu­ and opponents of apartheid contend that it ance Campaign” opposing the Group Areas lations. For nearly four decades, she has will give Indians and coloreds no more openly opposed the South African gov­ political autonomy than that given to some 3 Act. “The Group Areas Act established sepa­ ernment’s repressive apartheid racial segrega­ million blacks the government has relocated rate living areas for Indians and coloreds,” tion policies. One night in 1977, her opposi­ in ten impoverished “homelands.” Meer explains. “Both groups suffered ter­ tion to apartheid nearly cost her her life. “Those two parliamentary chambers are ribly because literally hundreds of thousands That night a band of racist extremists tried puppet chambers, just as the black home­ were moved and they were given an absolute to burn down her house, while firing several lands are puppet governments. By giving us pittance for their homes and for their land shotgun blasts and bullets into her living puppet chambers, the government hopes to which was toward the centers of most cities room and seriously wounding a house guest. alienate the Indians and coloreds from the and which the whites then wanted.” “It was a very vicious attack, an attack on black community,” Meer says, explaining Durban’s Indian population was relo­ my life,” Meer says. “I am quite lucky to be why she and many others are opposed to the cated to government housing on an old alive.” measure. banana plantation twenty miles outside the When the fire erupted, Meer’s house guest city. Meer’s widowed 68-year-old mother narrowly beat her to the front door, she had to sell her Durban home—purchased in recalls, where he took a shotgun blast in the BY JODINE MAYBERRY 1 JUNE 1984 1939 and which with improvements cost her 20.000 pounds—for 4,000 pounds in 1965. “The government knew very well that for TO: FATIMA MEER (I.N. 800/253936A ) 4.000 pounds she could not buy even a plot SYDENHAM, DURBAN of land on which to rebuild a house. She was made destitute. She just had to go around NOTICE IN TERMS OF SECTION 10(1) (a) OF THE living with her children” notes Meer. INTERNAL SECURITY ACT, 1950 Meer’s husband Ismail—a “listed” person under the terms of South Africa’s Suppres­ WHEREAS I, JAMES THOMAS KRUGER, Minister of sion of Communism Act—is banned for life Justice am satisfied that you engage in activities which from certain political organizations and endanger or are calculated to endanger the maintenance from being published. Her son Rashid, 26, of public order, I hereby... prohibit you for a period was banned and detained in 1976 and now commencing on the date on which this notice is lives in exile in England, where Meer was delivered or tendered to you [in July 1976] and expiring able to visit him for a week enroute to on 31 July 1981 from— Swarthmore. She also has two daughters, (1) absenting yourself from the magisterial district of Shamim, 29, and Shehnaz, 27, a lawyer who Durban; runs the Cape Town offices of Legal Re­ (2) being within— sources, an agency which provides free legal (a) any Bantu [black African] area... services to blacks. (b) any Bantu compound; Much of Meer’s work, both as a sociol­ (c) any area set apart under any law for the occupa­ ogist and as a political activist, has focused tion of Coloured or Asiatic persons, except on the non-white women of South Africa. Sydenham ; She was a founder of the Women’s Federa­ (d) the premises of any factory... tion of South Africa, a national coalition of (e) any... premises on which any publication... is white and black women formed in 1952 to prepared, compiled, printed or published__ protest the extension of “pass laws” to black (3) performing any of the following acts... women. (Pass laws confine blacks to specific (e) (i) preparing, compiling, printing, publishing, geographic areas in South Africa, unless disseminating or transmitting in any manner they obtain government-issued passes per­ whatsoever any document (which shall include mitting limited access to restricted areas to any book, pamphlet, record, list, placard, poster, work, or for other clearly defined purposes.) drawing, photograph or picture... Like Meer, most of the members of that in which, inter alia— group were banned. (aa) any form of State or any principle or policy In 1975 she was a founder and first of the Government of a State is propagated, president of the South African Black Wom­ defended, attacked, criticised, discussed or en’s Federation, whose protest activities, referred to ... following the killing of as many as 1,000 (cc) any matter is contained which is likely to blacks in Soweto and other black enclaves in engender feelings of hostility between the White 1976, led to the banning of the group and its and non-White inhabitants of the Republic of members. “We were really getting some­ South Africa... where. We were going to the rural areas and (4) communicating in any manner whatsoever with any setting up committees to work out their person whose name appears on any list in the priorities, we were fund raising, we had custody of the [government] .
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