Sanfew Hira gave a lecture on decolonizing mathematics at the Kwazulu Natal University. The room was packed with students who were very engaged. Prof. Vimolan Mudaly and Dr. Ronicka Mudaly have preparing the lectures for a while. Thanks Vimolan and Ronicka.
After the lecture Vimolan gave us a tour through Durban. In the afternoon Ronicka organized a meeting with some staff members of the science department to discuss how to move forward. We are looking into the idea of a DTM Center at the University of Kwazulu Natal.
We visited the Phoenix settlement where Mahatma Gandhi had his ashram in South Africa. My dear friend from New York, Ashook Ramsaran, had introduced me to Ela Gandhi, a granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. Ela and her dauhter Asha picked us up at the hotel and brought us to the place, where Ela gave as introduction to the life and work of Gandhi in South Africa and the development of the Phoenix settlement. Ela is 83 years old and still very vibrant. She served as a Member of Parliament in South Africa from 1994 to 2003 for the ANC. During apartheid, she was banned and arrested in 1973. She worked underground for the ANC. One of her sons was killed during the struggle against apartheid.
Ela told us about her conversations with Steve Biko, who often visited Phoenix and engaged with here on the relationship between armed struggle and non-violence. We also spoke about the recent allegations about racist statements that Gandhi made in his early years in South Africa. I shared a link of an article I wrote about this question. See https://din.today/news/should-gandhis-statue-fall/.
Ela Gandhi and Sandew Hira