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The Power of Mothers
February 25, 20257:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In French, with simultaneous live translation.
On Tuesday, February 25, Casa Árabe and the Capitán Swing publishing firm are presenting “El poder de las madres. Por un nuevo sujeto revolucionario” (“The Power of Mothers: For a new revolutionary subject”), an assertive book by French-Moroccan essayist, political scientist and activist Fatima Ouassak. Come join us or watch the live broadcast on YouTube.
The book shows the political potential held by mothers when facing the oppressive system of the State. It forms a feminist manifesto on the social strength and strategy possessed by mothers when dealing with racism and structural sexism.
“At times, during moments when there is a racist media fury, when faces that look like mine are associated with dangers that need to be neutralized, I feel a terrible fear. A fear that one day they will come take my children away from me and put them on a train to some unknown place. And that no one will lift a finger to stop it”: Fatima Ouassak.
Since the advent of the Fifth Republic, the French State has waged a latent war against a part of its population. Young people from working class neighborhoods who descend from post-colonial immigrants suffer a daily operation of “disinfantilization”: they are not treated as children but instead as threats to the system’s survival. How many have died as a result of this? How many have been murdered by the police with impunity? How many mothers have cried in court for their children victimized by racist crimes?
Through the struggles by The Madwomen of the Place Vendôme in the 1980’s and those by the Mothers’ Front at present, Ouassak shows the potential political strategy that mothers can carry out, in this book. Her message is truly revolutionary: by breaking the social pact of temperance that unwittingly binds them to the oppressive system, mothers will become protective guardians.
Ouassak will be talking with author Marta Malo, a translator, researcher and feminist activist who forms part of La Laboratoria, and with Houda Akrikez, a mother, intercultural mediator, grassroots activity, human rights defender and the founder and spokeswoman for the Tabadol Association, through which she fights to get electricity back for the Madrid neighborhood known as La Cañada Real. The event will be introduced by Karim Hauser, coordinator of Casa Árabe’s Cultural Programs.
Fatima Ouassak (Rif, Morocco, 1976) is a French-Moroccan essayist, speaker, public policy consultant and environmentalist, feminist and anti-racist activist. She co-founded the group Front de Mères, a union of families in working class neighborhoods. Her book “The Power of Mothers” received the Public Award for Best Feminist Essay in 2021. She was born in the Rif region of northern Morocco. In 1977, when she was just one year old, she emigrated with her family to join her father in France. She grew up in Lille-Sud and studied at Lille’s Institute of Political Studies. As the spokesperson for Front de Mères, she led, alongside Alternatiba, the creation of the first space devoted to popular ecology: “Verdragon, a house of popular ecology,” opened in 2021. She also presides over the feminist organization Réseau Classe/Genre/Race, created on the basis of a pamphlet which she wrote herself, which was published by Ifar in 2015, with the title Class/gender/race discrimination, reference points for understanding and acting against the discrimination suffered by women from post-colonial immigration. Since 2020, she has formed part of the National Council of the New Resistance (CNNR), founded by Denis Robert, Gilles Perret and Gérard Mordillat in 2020.
“At times, during moments when there is a racist media fury, when faces that look like mine are associated with dangers that need to be neutralized, I feel a terrible fear. A fear that one day they will come take my children away from me and put them on a train to some unknown place. And that no one will lift a finger to stop it”: Fatima Ouassak.
Since the advent of the Fifth Republic, the French State has waged a latent war against a part of its population. Young people from working class neighborhoods who descend from post-colonial immigrants suffer a daily operation of “disinfantilization”: they are not treated as children but instead as threats to the system’s survival. How many have died as a result of this? How many have been murdered by the police with impunity? How many mothers have cried in court for their children victimized by racist crimes?
Through the struggles by The Madwomen of the Place Vendôme in the 1980’s and those by the Mothers’ Front at present, Ouassak shows the potential political strategy that mothers can carry out, in this book. Her message is truly revolutionary: by breaking the social pact of temperance that unwittingly binds them to the oppressive system, mothers will become protective guardians.
Ouassak will be talking with author Marta Malo, a translator, researcher and feminist activist who forms part of La Laboratoria, and with Houda Akrikez, a mother, intercultural mediator, grassroots activity, human rights defender and the founder and spokeswoman for the Tabadol Association, through which she fights to get electricity back for the Madrid neighborhood known as La Cañada Real. The event will be introduced by Karim Hauser, coordinator of Casa Árabe’s Cultural Programs.
Fatima Ouassak (Rif, Morocco, 1976) is a French-Moroccan essayist, speaker, public policy consultant and environmentalist, feminist and anti-racist activist. She co-founded the group Front de Mères, a union of families in working class neighborhoods. Her book “The Power of Mothers” received the Public Award for Best Feminist Essay in 2021. She was born in the Rif region of northern Morocco. In 1977, when she was just one year old, she emigrated with her family to join her father in France. She grew up in Lille-Sud and studied at Lille’s Institute of Political Studies. As the spokesperson for Front de Mères, she led, alongside Alternatiba, the creation of the first space devoted to popular ecology: “Verdragon, a house of popular ecology,” opened in 2021. She also presides over the feminist organization Réseau Classe/Genre/Race, created on the basis of a pamphlet which she wrote herself, which was published by Ifar in 2015, with the title Class/gender/race discrimination, reference points for understanding and acting against the discrimination suffered by women from post-colonial immigration. Since 2020, she has formed part of the National Council of the New Resistance (CNNR), founded by Denis Robert, Gilles Perret and Gérard Mordillat in 2020.
Book cover