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© e-classroom 2015 www.e-classroom.co.za

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Fat

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Case study: Fatima Meer

Name:

Fatima Meer was a South African writer, academic, screenwriter, and prominent anti-apartheid activist. She was born in Durban on 12 August 1928 into an Indian family of nine children. Her father, Ismael Meer, was a newspaper editor of The Indian Views. Through him, Fatima was made aware at an early age, of the unfair racial discrimination that existed in the country. Indians, like other race groups did not have the same rights as whites.

Fatima’s family valued education. Fatima attended Durban Indian Girl’s High School in Durban and after that the University of the Witswatersrand. Her excellent command of English and her knowledge of the power of the written word, plus her determination contributed to her achieving what very few women of that time achieved – a Master’s degree in Sociology.

Highlights of Fatima Meer’s career as an activistHer career as a political activist started early. • In 1944 at the age of 16, Fatima helped raise a large sum of money for famine

relief in Bengal.• In 1946, at the age of 18, she joined a passive resistance campaign against racial

discrimination. She established the Student Passive Resistance Committee. • In 1948 the National party gained power and started implementing their rule of

apartheid. Fatima was one of the founding members of the Federation of South African Women. She also helped establish the Durban District Women’s League which focused on building alliances between Africans and Indians after the Indo-African race riots in 1949.

• In 1950 Fatima Meer married her first cousin, Ismail Meer.• In 1952 Fatima was banned. This was a practise that placed a limit on the number

of people who could meet in a group at any time. It also prevented the person publishing anything and the person’s movements were limited.

• In 1956 Meer started to lecture in Sociology at the University of Natal. She was the first Black woman to be appointed as a lecturer at a white South African University. 

GRA

DE

6

© e-classroom 2015 www.e-classroom.co.za

Gra

de 6

Term

3: S

ocia

l Sci

ence

: His

tory

: Rig

hts

and

resp

onsi

bilit

ies

of c

itize

ns in

a d

emoc

racy

: Cas

e st

udy:

Fat

ima

Mee

r: a

lead

er in

bui

ldin

g de

moc

racy

• In the 1960s, Fatima organised night vigils as protests .against the unfairness of the policy of the detention of anti-apartheid activists without a trial.

• In the 1970s Fatima was banned again because she tried to organise a political rally with the Black Consciousness Movement figure Steve Biko. She was detained without a trial.

In 1976 Fatima was released and she survived an assassination attempt at her home. She was shot at but not harmed.

In 2010, aged 81, Fatima Meer died at St. Augustine’s Hospital in Durban from a stroke which she suffered two weeks earlier. She will always be remembered as a champion of the underclasses.

(Information taken from South African History online)

Activity 1: Have a discussion [group activity]1. What is your definition of an activist? 2. Do you think that Fatima Meer’s rights were infringed upon? Give reasons for

your answers.3. Fatima’s activism was at its height under the system of apartheid. Would our

present government get away with treating its citizens like this today? Give reasons for your answers.

4. What is meant by the word ‘banned’?5. What would you say were Fatima Meer’s greatest achievements?6. Do you think the political views of a parent always influence the children?

Activity 2: Create a time line [individual activity]A timeline is a useful way to remember a chronological events. It can be created in different ways, either vertically or horizontally.

1. Copy the vertical timeline on the left into your book and summarise the events in Fatima Meer’s life in short headings.

2. Write the date on the left off the timeline and the brief heading on the right of the timeline. The first one has been done for you.

for example

1828 Fatima Meer is born