DURBAN-based the 1860 Heritage Centre will convert one of struggle Stalwart Fatima Meer’s book to a digital flip book which will be displayed at the centre soon.
Selvan Naidoo, the director of the 1860 Heritage Centre, said on Sunday, it would be an astounding tribute to resilience and determination to survive against all odds.
“Re-read Professor Fatima Meer’s vignettes of Tin Town. Most fascinating reading on this place of memory. The book will be converted to a digital flip book to be displayed at the 1860 Heritage Centre shortly.”
The centre is a South African heritage museum that showcases the diversity of South Africa's rich heritage.
Meer was a South African writer, academic, screenwriter, and prominent anti-apartheid activist.
Born to a newspaper editor in 1928, Meer quickly became involved in politics. She vehemently opposed segregation that became a reality via the South African Group Areas Act.
Meer was among the first women to join the executive panel of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), where she continued to lead marches against the apartheid government.
The struggle stalwart died in 2010, aged 81. The biography about Fatima Meer entitled Voices of Liberation was written by Shireen Hassim and published on 2019.
Meer also wrote, Portrait of Indian South Africans (1969); The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma (1970); Race and Suicide in South Africa (1976); Towards Understanding Iran Today (1985); Resistance in the Townships (1989); Higher than Hope (1990) –the first authorised biography of Nelson Mandela, which was translated into 13 languages; The South African Gandhi: The Speeches and Writings of MK Gandhi (1996); Passive Resistance, 1946: A Selection of Documents (1996) and Fatima Meer: Memories of Love and Struggle (2010).
Meer published her book Portrait of Indian South Africans in 1969 and donated all revenue from the sale of the book to the Gandhi Settlement for needs and to build Gandhi Museum and Clinic.
She helped an operation to rescue 10 000 Indian flood victims at Tin Town which was located on the banks of the Umgeni River.
Daily News