IN the vibrant streets of Cape Town, during the 1930s and 1940s, two young men from Türkiye pursued a dream: to become doctors, healers of the body and mind, in a land where race, religion, and nationality often dictated one’s fate.
The city, like much of South Africa at the time, was steeped in deep divisions – social, racial, and cultural. And it was here, at the University of Cape Town (UCT), revealed the harsh realities of a system governed by colonial prejudice.
One of them, Muhammed Shukri Effendi, a young man of Turkish descent, had always dreamed of becoming a doctor.
Born in Bo-Kaap and raised in a home where the values of education and hard work were held above all else, Muhammed’s ambition led him to study in…
