Imazi.Reine founder Fatima-Zohra talks about founding communities and a decolonial feminism

May 5, 2021

min read

Fatima-Zohra Ait El Maâti is the leader of the Belgian feminist 2.0 and inclusive collective Imazi.Reine. She spreads social awareness through social media and creates safe space for women of color to express themselves. She organizes a community where people can rely on each other to find comfort and answers to their traumas.

Seeing how those women of color drawing strength together from sharing their stories lead to finding solutions, sometimes political solutions. - Fatima-Zohra, Founder of Imazi.Reine

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Inspired by women to inspire women

Fatima-Zohra, born in Morocco and raised in Belgium, studies Architecture and Sociology. Moreover, with no experience making documentaries, she released her short film "My Grandmother is Not a Feminist" in 2019. Feedback from the film not only sparked discussions, but audiences also labeled Fatima as an activist. The documentary explores femininity, sexuality, immigration and decolonization, through a conversation between Fatima and her grandmother.

I was born into a family of very strong women and I never doubted that. Like I have these feminine values in my family without using the word feminist, I have always felt those things.

Furthermore, the documentary shows how Fatima-Zohra was raised as an Amazigh Muslim woman. Amazigh represents an ethnic group of indigenous peoples in North Africa. In Tamazight or Berber, it is pronounced Imazighen or IMAZI.REINE, which inspired Fatima to call her feminist collective that.

A safe space to come together, fight and heal

On the one hand, Imazi.Reine is a movement that values inclusivity, feminism 2.0, anti-racism and decolonization. On the other hand, it is a safe place where women of color can rely on each other by sharing their stories both online and offline as intimate sisters. Fatima-Zohra also says she needed this collective as much as the rest of her community:

There is that power in simply getting together and talking with people who are going through the same things.

In this interview, Fatima talks about the different ways she uses her social media and her community to spread social awareness. One of the goals of the collective is to debunk negative stereotypes and racist misconceptions about Muslim women of color.

The success of the #HijabisFightBack campaign, which Imazi.Reine, co-organizes against the headscarf ban in schools and universities, is a further example of Fatima-Zohra's fight for decolonized feminism. She also explains how she organizes online and offline communities in a very inclusive way with women of color from the African diaspora, especially when it comes to mental health.

To discover more of her thoughts and activities to help women of color, you can watch the full interview on our IGTV. This exclusive video is the third installment in a series of interviews with influencers using their social media to raise awareness about social issues. All interviews were conducted as part of the government crackdown on the spread of Covid-19. This video was shot at the temporary occupation BARA 142 (Condition).

Direction & photography: Helena Verheyen // Interview & video editing: Paul-Henri Yuma // Main photo: Loic Meulenberg // Editor-in-chief: Tim Vanhaecke

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