Voices of Liberation – Fatima Meer

Fatima Meer was an intellectual, academic, writer and activist – a tireless fighter for social justice and human rights. Her intellectual work sought to intertwine place, identity, and ethical commitment. In 1994 Fatima declined a parliamentary seat due to her preference to work in the non-governmental sector. She did however serve the ANC government in several capacities. In 2010, at the age of 81, Fatima Meer died after a stroke. In her introductory essay, author Shireen Hassim deftly weaves a narrative in which Meer's distinctive individuality as an academic and activist unfolds. In particular, the reader comes to understand how Meer’s sense of a common humanity critically informed her stance in the world. Fatima Meer, published by the HSRC Press, is the first book in the Voices of Liberation series that showcases an Indian woman who uniquely straddled the worlds of academia and activism. Each book in the series features an analytical essay by a scholar, a selection from the body of work produced by the eponymous subject, including interviews, as well as short introductions by the editor that contextualize each extract.

Content

Part 1: The free mind of Fatima Meer

Introduction: The activist sociologist

Race beyond black and white

Indian–African co-operation

Early life

The activist is groomed

University

The activist academic

America, Black Consciousness and Islam

Writer

Prison and bannings

Violence in the 1980s

Negotiations and democracy

Her legacy

Part 2: Her Voice: Selected writings of Fatima Meer

Social research in South Africa and the black academic

Women in the apartheid society

Satyagraha in South Africa

From Portrait of Indian South Africans

NUSAS in the ’70s

Indian people: Current trends and policies

A tragic report

American impressions

The meaning of sociology in southern Africa

Uprooting and resettling

The black woman in South Africa

From Race and suicide in South Africa

From Apartheid: Our picture

South Africa: New constitution, old ideology

From Towards understanding Iran today

Address on disinvestment, tyranny and change

Amaphekula (Terrorist)

From Higher than hope: Rolihlahla, we love you

Statement: Weekly Mail Book Week

Indentured labour and group formations in apartheid society

Negotiated settlement: Pros and cons

Padraig O’Malley interview with Fatima Meer

Gandhi on women: A critique

The (mis)trial of Andrew Zondo

From ummah to ubuntu

The struggle of South African Indians to be South Africans

The campaign to wipe out Third World debt to alleviate poverty

Shireen Hassim holds a Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and African Politics at Carleton University (Ottawa) and is a Visiting Professor at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER), University of the Witwatersrand. She is the author of Women’s Organisations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), The ANC Women’s League: Sex, Gender and Politics (Jacana, 2014) and the editor of several other books.