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Home , Fatima Meer, University of Natal

Freedom in Our Lifetime: ’s Struggle Scholars Online 1 Biography of

atima Meer is considered one of South helped found the Foundation of South African FAfrica’s most distinguished twentieth cen- Women, which led a famous anti-pass march tury leaders. As a political leader, publisher, on the government buildings in in writer, and human rights and gender activ- 1956. In 1975 she was again banned, this time ist, she has worked tirelessly to improve race for five years, and in 1976 was arrested and relations, and promote justice, reconciliation, put in prison for six months. and non-violent action in such fields as edu- Professor Meer was married to Ismail C. cation, social work, poverty alleviation, and Meer, a prominent leader in South Africa’s health care. Professor Meer was an important Indian community who was arrested in the anti- activist and has continued her Treason Trial of 1956. He was imprisoned for activism after 1994 in support of the poor. two years until the charges against him were Professor Meer earned her BA and MA dropped. The two were close friends of Nel- in at the University of (now son Mandela and his family. The Meers’ son the University of KwaZulu-Natal), at a time Rashid was also an anti-apartheid activist and when very few women of color graduated from was forced into exile in the late 1970s. South African universities. She was a profes- Since the 1980s, Meer has worked with sor at the university from 1956 until 1988, and NGOs, fighting for the rights of shack dwellers was the first women of color to be appointed and rural migrants. She organized a number as a lecturer at a designated-white South Af- of institutions aimed at improving the quality rican University. She has produced over forty of education for Africans and providing job books, some as author, some as editor, and training skills for communities in and around some as publisher, including the first autho- . Meer also helped found Jubilee South rized biography of , Higher Africa, in order to lobby for the cancellation Than Hope (1988). of Third World debt. She has connected the Professor Meer began her political activ- struggles of South Africa’s poor to the struggles ism as a high school student, starting the of poor people around the world. Student Passive Resistance Committee in 1946 Since 1994, she has served in a number of to support the Indian Passive Resistance Cam- advisory positions for the government, includ- paign. When the National Party came to power ing advisor to the Minister of Arts, Culture, in 1948, she became more heavily involved Science, and Technology, a member of the in politics and spoke out publicly against Advisory Panel to the President, and a member apartheid. In 1949 she helped found the Dur- of the Board of the South African Broadcasting ban and District Women’s League—the first Corporation. Professor Meer has won numer- women’s organization with joint Indian and ous awards for her activities, including the African membership—in order to build alli- Union of South African Journalists Award ances between Indians and Africans in Durban (1975), the Imam Abdullah Haroon Award for after violence between those groups that year. the Struggle against Oppression and Racial In 1952, she was banned for three years by the Discrimination (1990), the Vishwa Gurjari government under the Suppression of Com- Award for Contribution to Human Rights munism Act, confined to the city of Durban (1994), and one of the Top 100 Women Who and prohibited from all public gatherings and Shook South Africa (1999). from having her work published. In 1955, she

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