.Professor Fatima Meer
The School of Social Sciences within the College of Humanities recently hosted the Professor Fatima Meer Memorial Lecture on Defiance and Resistance: Meer’s Cultural Creativity, Social Capital and Artistic Vision at UKZN’s Howard College Theatre.
Meer was born to immigrant parents in Durban, South Africa, on 12 August 1928. She earned a reputation as a brilliant student, reading for both a BA and MA degree in Sociology at the former University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu-Natal). Her academic excellence was recognised at a time when few Black women graduated from universities.
Meer was the first Black woman appointed in Sociology at a designated White-only South African university from 1956-1988, which is an important historic feat. In 1972, Meer founded the Institute of Black Research (IBR) to advance the intellectual project through research, activism and publishing. Meer was a prolific writer, authoring and editing over 40 books on various social problems, including suicide, apartheid, social justice, and women’s rights. Her most famous book: Higher Than Hope, is a biography on the life of Nelson Mandela. In 1975, Meer received the Union of South African Journalists Award; was awarded the Imam Abdullah Haroon Award for the Struggle against Oppression and Racial Discrimination in 1990; received the Vishwa Gurjari Award for Contribution to Human Rights in 1994; and was named as one of the Top 100 Women Who Shook South Africa in 1999.
Her first public act of defiance in her long and pioneering political life began in high school at age 17. Her political and spiritual education were influenced by Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Luthuli. Meer’s life was filled with love, joy, triumph, longing, loss and regrets. She was a scholar, activist, prisoner, and family matriarch, yet she is best remembered as a free spirit, whose truth was crowned by rebellion and revolution. Despite assassination attempts, petrol bombs, house arrests, imprisonment, torture and family harassment, she remained steadfast in her pursuit for freedom.
Meer’s early activism involved organising the 1956 anti-pass law Women’s March to the Union Buildings. She was a founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement and a close associate of Steve Biko. She founded and headed the Natal Education Trust, raising funds from the Indian community to build schools in African townships. She was a founding member of the Jubilee 2000 South African movement, which called for the cancellation of the debt owed by developing countries. In 1994, Meer served as an advisor to a democratic government, appointed to a number of commissions and boards, all the while remaining committed to supporting the poor and maintaining her pro-active approach working for social justice. Meer remained critical and vocal of the democratic government’s slow response to pro-poor programmes.
Meer paid a heavy price for her activism. She was banned from speaking in public for five years and was repeatedly detained without trial. However, she remained committed to the fight for justice. The apartheid prison was an instrument meant to dehumanise and de-conscientise. However, every apartheid prisoner returned apartheid brutality with reconciliation and love for South Africa. Meer used her gift for writing to disrupt the apartheid narrative.
Meer was a respected academic and writer known worldwide. Her scholarly work shed light on the experiences of marginalised communities, bringing their stories to the forefront. Her writings provided insightful analyses of apartheids impacts on individuals and society. Her academic career became a powerful tool to expose the atrocities of apartheid and inspire change. Her writing on political activist, Andrew Zondo - who dedicated his life to end apartheid - demonstrates her sociological method.
Few will remember Andrew Zondo, who was executed after receiving five death sentences for planting a bomb on 23 December 1985 at a shopping centre in Amanzimtoti. Zondo joined the Umkhonto we Sizwe at age 16 and was executed at age 19. In 1987, Meer’s book, The Trial of Andrew Zondo: A Sociological Insight, recorded the events and circumstances surrounding Andrew Zondo’s trial and subsequent execution. The book is indeed sociologically insightful, given its careful scientific methodology. Opening with a legal fact, Meer tells us that the bomb resulted in the death of “[a] baby, a young boy, a girl and two women”, and the injury of “seventeen White men and boys, twenty-eight White women and girls, one Black man and two Black women”.
Meer’s project is a deep suspicion of the courts, which are as a matter of course, extensions of the enemy state. Meer’s sociological project is about the common person among Black South Africans. Nelson Mandela argues a similar sentiment at his trial decades earlier. Zondo is also confounded at his pro deo council. However, Meer is sensitised and deeply respectful of Zondo’s psychological construction: firstly, he is a disciplined militant political activist, and then second, he never wavers to show proper respect for his deeply religious parents.
His intense distaste for the irredeemable apartheid state contrasts nebulously with his caring and love for family. Meer builds Zondo’s story with the obvious - hardships, sickness and poverty. Turning to the legal proceedings, that frames Zondo’s state of mind at the time of the bombing. Then in shock, Meer relates the court’s bias in rejecting Zondo’s history of mental illness.
The defence, to its shame, claims that psychiatry is not an exact science. Next, Meer examines the historical, sociological and judicial perspectives of the notion of truth. For Meer, it was clear that Zondo was denied all these truths. Meer is justifiably unwavering in that Zondo’s life should have been constructed to shine a light on his choice to plant a bomb and knowingly kill a number of people. There are unbreakable invisible continuities between past and present, life context and life chances, and mind and action. Meer demonstrates a greater truth is available to us, but denied to Zondo. The judicial process will be representative of the character of the apartheid state - so much is obvious. How is it then, Zondo, fighting for a greater cause on behalf of an entire nation, that highly qualified academics, professionals and practitioners maintained their silence and kept a virulent distance from Zondo’s trial? Only Meer was the believing friend to Zondo and the family.
We can only imagine how Meer felt on the morning of the hanging. To complete the story, Zondo’s accomplice in the bombing, who turned state witness, got to live, and Zondo was hanged on 9 September 1986. Zondo’s wonder at the bluest blue seas of Port Shepstone was no more.
Meer’s legacy inspires new generations of activists, scholars, and individuals committed to justice. Her life’s work serves as a reminder that one person’s dedication and determination can profoundly impact a nation. As we honour her memory, we carry forward her vision of a just and equitable society where all people are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their background or circumstances.
Fatima Meer died on 13 March 2010, at the age of 81. She was an erudite figure in the fight against apartheid, and her legacy continues to inspire people worldwide. A remarkable woman is remembered as a champion of justice and a tireless fighter for a better future for the poor. Meer is notably recognised as one of South Africa’s most distinguished twentieth-century political leaders, publisher, writer, and human rights and gender activist. The Professor Meer Archives reflect her writings on race relations, promotion of justice, reconciliation, non-violent action, education, social work, poverty alleviation, labour and healthcare.
• Dr Jayanathan Govender is based at the School of Social Sciences. He researches civil society, public policy, inequality studies, clinical sociology, BRICS sociology and COVID-19. His recent edited publication is Handbook on the Sociology of Inequalities in BRICS Countries (Frontpage, London).
• Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan is based at the School of Social Sciences and is an NRF (National Research Foundation) rated researcher and one of 40 internationally certified clinical sociologists in the world. She serves as the vice president for the Association for applied and Clinical Sociology AACS and the International Sociological Association RC 46 Clinical Sociology.
Photographs: Supplied
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.