Abdullah Abdurahman
Encyclopedia
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, born in Wellington
Wellington, Western Cape
Wellington is a town in the Western Cape Winelands 45 minutes from Cape Town, in South Africa with a population of approximately 58,300. Wellington's economy is centered around agriculture such as wine, table grapes, citrus fruit and a brandy industry. The town is located 75 km north-east of...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. He was the first coloured
Coloured
In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured refers to an heterogenous ethnic group who possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of Southern Africa, West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique,...
city councillor of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, and leader of the anti-apartheid movement African Political Organisation.
Abdurahman was the son of relatively affluent Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Cape Malays, and his grandparents were slaves who had bought their freedom. After receiving a good British education in Wellington and Cape Town, he went to Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
to study medicine in 1888, qualifying as a doctor in 1893. Upon returning to South Africa he sat up a thriving private practice in Cape Town. In 1904 he was elected Cape Town's first non-European city councillor, a position he held almost uninterrupted until his death. As city councillor he worked to improve the conditions of the coloured community, especially within the field of education; he helped set up the first secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...
s for coloured in Cape Town.
The greatest political achievements, however, of Abdurahman’s political life, were connected to his involvement with the African Political Organisation. Elected president in 1905, his contribution to the party's success was so great that the party was often jokingly referred to as Abdurahman's Political Organisation. The party's goal was to fight the increasing racial oppression in the country, initially only on behalf of non-African coloured. Abdurahman unsuccessfully led two delegations to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to secure franchise rights for coloured before the creation of the Union of South Africa
Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...
. Later, between 1927 and 1934, Abdurahman and his party would start working closer with black African political leaders, in an attempt to create a united front, but this came to little. By the late 1930s, other political parties, such as the more radical National Liberation League, had taken the initiative.
On February 2 1940, Abdurahman died of a cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest, is the cessation of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart to contract effectively...
. His funeral was attended by over 30,000 people. After his death, the party he had built up went into rapid decline. His political legacy is a mixed one; modern, more radical commentators see him as overly accommodating to the white authorities, and as far as practical results are concerned, the achievements of his political career were limited. On the other hand, there is little doubt that he was the most powerful South African coloured politician of his time, and his popularity in the non-European community was immense, as was the respect he enjoyed with the white elite. In 1999, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
posthumously awarded Dr. Abdurahman the Order for Meritorious Service: Class 1 (Gold) for his work against racial oppression.
Abdurahman was married twice: once to the British Helen (Nellie) Potter James, whom he met in Glasgow. They had two daughters, Waradea "Rosie" and Zainunnisa (Cissie) Gool
Zainunnisa (Cissie) Gool
Zainunnisa Gool was an anti-apartheid political and civil rights leader in South Africa. She was the daughter of prominent physician and politician Abdullah Abdurahman. Cissie founded the National Liberation League and helped to create the Non-European United Front...
, and divorced in 1923. His younger daughter from this marriage, Cissie (1900–1963), became an important political figure in her own right, as a municipal councillor in Cape Town. His second marriage was in 1925 to Margaret May Stansfield. She bore him one daughter Begum, and two sons, Abdul and Nizam, all who survived him.