ISMAIL CHOTA (I C) MEER – ONE OF THE GIANTS OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLES WHO WAS BANNED AND RESTRICTED FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS A RADIO DOCUMENTARY IN HIS HONOUR BY SUBRY GOVENDER

THIS FORMER LAWYER IN THE NORTH COAST TOWN OF VERULAM WAS AN INSPIRATION TO ALL

(MR ISMAIL MEER (EXTREME LEFT) WITH NATAL INDIAN CONGRESS LEADER, DR MONTY NAICKER; ANTI-APARTHEID SPORTS LEADER M N PATHER; ANOTHER GREAT POLITICAL AND SPORTING ACTIVIST, ME GEORGE SINGH; AND MR MEER'S WIFE, PROFESSOR FATIMA MEER) In 1998, while Mr Ismail Chota (IC) Meer was serving as an ANC member of the provincial parliament in KwaZulu-Natal, I had the privilege of talking to him about his early life and political struggles at his home in Asherville, Durban. During his struggles for a free, non-racial and democratic South Africa, Mr Meer was banned, house-arrested, detained, and denied the right to be a free writer and journalist for more than 40 years. He was also tried for treason. In addition to his political struggles, he was also a trade unionist, educationist, and lawyer. After talking to this great stalwart of Indian-origin, I compiled a Radio Documentary to record his contributions during the struggle years. Mr Meer was the husband of another great activist, educationist, writer, and sociologist, the late Professor Fatima Meer who passed away on March 12 2010. I C Meer himself passed away 10 years earlier on 1 May 2 000 at the age of 82 after serving the African National Congress in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Assembly since the dawn of our new era on April 27 1994. Mr Meer, who was born in 1918 in the small northern KwaZulu-Natal town of Waschbank, near Dundee, completed his high school at the famous and historical Sastri College in Durban and obtained his law degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1946. While at university in Johannesburg he came under the influence of Dr Yusuf Dadoo, who was president of the Transvaal Indian Congress at this time. He also be-friended Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and other political activists. Mr Meer became involved with the Transvaal Indian Congress as its secretary in 1945, the South African Indian Congress, Natal Indian Congress and the South African Communist Party. He also participated in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and was among the Congress leaders arrested for treason in December 1956, but charges against him were dropped in early 1958. At the same time, he was a committed writer and journalist. He edited the Passive Resister during the passive resistance campaigns in 1946 and during the height of the struggles in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s he wrote under various names for the Leader newspaper in Durban and other publications because of the banning orders imposed against him by the apartheid regime. He suffered this inhumanity for nearly 40 years. Despite the restrictions and banning orders against him, Mr Meer managed to run his law practice in the town of Verulam, about 25km north of Durban. It was here in Verulam that I first came into contact with him while I was a pupil at the local high school. Most people in the town and elsewhere saw Mr Meer not only as a role model but also as an inspirational leader against the former apartheid regime.

His wife, Professor Fatima Meer, published the book, "Ismail Meer: A Fortunate Man", as a tribute to him in December 2002. I am re-publishing the RADIO DOCUMENTARY today on April 19 2020 (at the time of the Corona Virus Lockdown) to honour this great Indian-origin leader for his committed struggles for the creation of a non-racial and democratic future South Africa.