The effects of violence on the Moroccan

youth’s behaviour and development

A research project submitted to the department of English in partial fulfillment

for BA degree in English studies

Submitted by:

- BADR BOUICHNADH

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Acknowledgements:

I cannot express enough thanks to my supervisor Ahmed Zitouni for his

continued support, advises, and help, and I offer my sincere appreciation for the

learning opportunities provided while conducting this research.

My completion of this project could not have been accomplished without the

support of my friends and family.

– Thank you all for allowing me time away from you to research and write.

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Abstract:

Violence can be seen by many individuals as a bad behaviour that someone does to

another or to himself with the intention to harm the other or himself physically or

psychologically. In fact, violence is considered to be an instinct deeply inserted inside the

human’s genesis. Back in time, humans used aggression as a tool in order to survive, and the

violent behaviours were and still used for the will of power and control. Nowadays, humans

are living within civilized societies, and the violent behaviours are seen as different

uncivilized acts or crimes that can be committed by an individual under certain circumstances

or conditions. This paper is based on the analysis of different research projects, academic

works, and books that deal with the origins, causes, and effects of violence on the Moroccan

youth’s behaviours and development. In addition, this paper includes different observations of

a sample of youth from Ifrane whose ages are between 15 and 30 years old, and the

observations are analyzed and discussed for to get some conclusions about the topic.

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 Table of contents:

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2

ABSTARCT 3

INTRODUCTION 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

A) Violence in Morocco 7

B) Origins of violence 8

C) Violence and its effects on children 10

D) Violence against teachers in Morocco 12

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

A) Research questions 17

B) Research hypotheses 17

C) Research purpose 17

CHAPTER 3: THE MOROCCAN SOCIETY AND VIOLENCE 18

A) Types of violence in Morocco 18

1) The direct violence 18

a) Street and school violence 19

b) Domestic violence 20

c) Violence in public spaces 22

2) The structural violence 24

3) The cultural violence 26

B) The triangle of violence 30

Figure 1 30

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 C) The Moroccan society and violence 32

1) The youth situation in Morocco 32

2) The stance of Islam on violence 35

3) The causes of violence in Morocco 39

a) Poverty in Morocco 39

b) Ignorance in Morocco 40

c) Opression and repression in Morocco 41

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 43

1) Description and analysis of the data 43

2) Discussion of the data 48

CONCLUSION 50

REFERENCES 51

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Introduction:

Violence is an act or a behaviour that can be caused due to anger, frustration,

resentment, and oppression. This behavior can take many shapes such as: committing suicide,

committing genocide, terrorism, and assaulting the other verbally by insults or physically by

beating or shooting. In Morocco, violence is manifested in different aspects of life.

Historically, women have been victims of men in this country, and the act of beating the wife

or wives was a sign of manhood and masculinity. In addition, children were abused by their

parents, and were getting insults and fists most the time. That is because insulting, beating,

and shouting was the way these parents were raised in and the way they intend to raise their

pupils in too. Another type of violence that has been prevalent in Morocco is the state

violence, and it is mostly manifested in the act of beating that is made by the state to shut off

the protestors.

Lately, I have witnessed several assaults, aggressions, and violent behaviors made by

students toward their teachers in different schools in Morocco. I have also noticed the

prevalence of crimes and robberies using weapons as bats, knives, and swords. In addition,

many attempts of rape were made by male teenagers toward females, and many students hurt

each other physically because of fights and verbal abuses in school. These acts can be

considered as different cases that are violent and affect every individual in Morocco.

This paper tackles an important topic which is “the effects of violence on the

Moroccan youth’s behaviour and development.” This research is a theoretical research that

can be classified into the field of sociology, therefore; it will be based on the analysis of

different academic papers made about violence and observations of the youth’ behaviours in

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Morocco. Firstly, I am going to talk about the origins of violence in Morocco, and the effects

of violence on children. Secondly, I am going to talk about the three types of violence in

Morocco which are direct violence, cultural violence, and structural violence. Thirdly, I am

going to discuss how the Moroccan society perceives violence, and the overall situation of the

youth in Morocco. Finally, I am going to collect the data gathered and analyze it in order to

get to some conclusions.

To conclude, conducting this research is directly linked to finding explanations for

these research problems: firstly, domestic violence had lead most of each family member to

suffer either psychologically or physically. Secondly, many students have left the school at an

early age because of the violent pedagogical ways that some teachers depend on in class as

insulting or beating. Thirdly, many individuals suffer from different psychological conditions

in Morocco because of rape crimes that happen to the male and female and to individuals

form different ages. Finally, state violence has led many protestors to addiction in several

ways, losing hope in life and committing suicide, stop fighting for their rights, or becoming

extremists and commit serious crimes such as terrorist attacks. In addition, the research

objectives are to show how violence affects the youth’s development from childhood to

adulthood, how can violence destroy many lives in Morocco, how the state violence promotes

hate, depression, terror, and aggressive behaviors, and how can violence influence the youth’s

behaviours and development.

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Chapter1: Literature Review

A) Violence in Morocco:

Violence remains one of the big problems that the Moroccan society suffers from, and

most of its impacts are reflected on the youth category. There are several forms or types of

violence that are prevalent in Morocco such as: domestic violence where the children can

witness aggressive behaviours from their parents while growing up in an unbalanced family,

state violence where the individuals who are fighting for their rights get beaten and arrested

by the state, school violence where the students are beaten by their teachers and lately

teachers also are aggressed by students, and the aggressive behaviours among the youth (15-

29 years) in schools and streets such as: fights, insults, robberies, threats, sexual assaults,

homicides, and suicides.

According to a study made by Rabat Social Studies institute in coordination with the

foundation Heinrich Böll Northern Africa about the relationship between marginalization and

violence among the Moroccan youth in 2015-2016, marginalization of the youth in Morocco

is considered to be the first responsible factor for their aggressive behaviours. In addition, 2.7

million Moroccans whose ages are from 15 to 29 years old aren’t registered in schools or

universities and the majority of them are unemployed.

In this study they tried to show the types of violence that exist in Morocco and they

analyzed the data they could get from the interviews they made and surveys that they

distributed. The classification of violence that they have identified in Morocco has been

inspired from the work of the Norwegian theorist Johan Galtung who classified violence as a

behaviour into three main types: firstly, there is the direct violence that includes behaviours

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that serve to threaten life and diminish the one’s capacity to meet human basic needs, for

instance; killing, bullying, sexual assault, and emotional manipulation. Secondly, we can find

structural violence which represents all the systematic ways that could create some sort of

marginalization and drive people away from their basic rights, services, and opportunities that

are crucial for the one’s survival. Thirdly, there’s the cultural violence which stands for the

existence of a prevailing and dominant social norms that make direct and structural violence

seem acceptable or right to the majority of the society.

There were other classifications of violence in the study made by the social studies

institute in Rabat, and the study included these types of aggression: domestic violence, school

violence, and social violence. They elaborated their study on the fact that the Moroccan youth

are the ones who can be considered as the source and the victim of violence at the same time;

However, they didn’t precise that addiction to all kinds of drugs, suicide, and other violent

behaviours are just the outcome of all the violent behaviours that was done upon them. As a

conclusion, this study dealt with the idea of marginalization as the main factor responsible for

violence within in the Moroccan youth society.

B) The origins of violence:

After reading Origins of violence and strategies for change by Diane Delaney, I got the

occasion to know several theories about the origin of aggression. This work was extremely

valuable in terms of the data it was based on, the different philosophical theories about

aggression, and the scientific researches made about the topic. In addition, this book was a

part of a project that was produced by an organization that aimed to end violence against

women. The author thinks that in order to reach that goal we have to understand the causes

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and effects of violence; therefore, there was a lot of analysis of different views that can

provide a deep understanding of the issue of violence in order to end it.

Firstly, there was the Darwinian theory of evolution that considers violence as a

product of evolution. Secondly, we have Nietzsche’s view about violence related to the will of

power and dominance. Thirdly, there’s Miller and Dollard’s opinion which consists on the

fact that violence was always a result of frustration. Fourthly, there’s Freud’s belief which is

identical to Miller and Dollard’s hypothesis of frustration and its direct relationship with

violence. Fifthly, there’s Lorenz theory that he developed on his book On Aggression (1963)

where he claims that violence wasn’t only a result of sexual frustration, but it was an instinct

too.

After analyzing each of these theories mentioned above, Diane Delaney suggested the

requisites for a nonviolent society which are as follows: equality, knowledge, values, and

security. She discussed violence scientifically when explained how humans have a brain

structure that consists of two main parts. The first part developed in the human’s brain is the

limbic system which can be found in the lower brain and is responsible for emotions,

memory, mirroring behaviours, taste, smell, aggression, and the sex drive. The second part is

the pre-frontal cortex which is the part of the brain that distinguishes humans from other

mammals and is responsible for reasoning, thinking, and planning.

She elaborated on this idea by claiming that our reasoning as human beings is

responsible for our responses to our emotions. She wanted to say that if the one has a good

control of his emotions using his reasoning, he may be able to control violence and avoid

being aggressive in some situations. In addition, she clarified that strong connections are

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made in the healthy brain between the limbic mind and the pre-frontal cortex, and this would

lead to a good control of emotions by reasoning. To conclude, violence can be an instinct, but

humans can fight the urges of their instincts if they worked on their reasoning and mind

connections.

Diane also talked about hormones and neurotransmitters and their relationship with

violence. Hormones are chemicals released by a brain cell that sends out messages to all the

other parts of the body of a human being. Our production of hormones is made in response to

different biological and environmental situations that we face in our lives. In addition,

hormones are responsible for several human’s responses such as fighting, mood swings,

anger, depression, hunger cravings, and sexual arousal. In the case of anger which can be

manifested in an aggressive response, it is Adrenaline and Noradrenaline hormones that are

responsible for the anger sensations we feel. As a conclusion, according to Di Canio (1993),

“people respond differently to a rush of hormones, for some it may be pleasant and exiting,

but others may feel fearful and powerless.”

C) Violence and its effects on children:

The most important thing that Diane talked about in her book is the part where she

discussed the effects of violence on children. She benefited from the work that were done by a

researcher called Mate who believes that whatever happens to children from the beginning of

their lives can eventually affect their behaviour in the social context. In addition, a research

that was made by Tavris in 1989 has reached the important conclusion that violence begets or

give rise to violence, for any type of aggression that can affect children would drive them to

practice it when they have the ability to do it.

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 Another research that Diane used in her analysis of violence is the work that has been

made by a psychologist who Studies Violence called Narvaez. This psychologist made a

research about children, their parents, and their environment linked to violence. He found out

that traumatization, neglect, or abuse in childhood results in underdeveloped emotions and

emotional system, poor integration in social activities, overactive stress response system,

depression, anger, frustration, and a suppressed immune system. On the other hand, the good

early experiences for children can result in greater empathy, self-control, conscience

development, higher intelligence, behaviour regulation, social engagement, less depression,

and less aggression. As a conclusion, Narvaez focused on the relationship between children’s

development, their parents, and their experience while growing up. He deduced that good care

results in consciousness, secure attachment, and the free will to experience; however, having

unhealthy emotional childhood can lead to lack of compassion, lack of empathy, and

aggression.

Diane based her work on the main idea that in order to have a nonviolent society we

have to raise our children in a healthy way. She states that to control human’s behaviours is

impossible, but we can raise our children in a way where we show them more compassion,

understanding, conviction, values, and unconditional love. If a family can provide this kind of

features to their loved ones and protect them from abuses and violent behaviours that they can

encounter in their environment, violence would be the last thing a child would think about. On

the other hand, Neufeld (2005) thinks that the problem that most of the parents face is that

their children are attaching to their peers and consider them role models rather than their

parents themselves.

Children try to imitate their peers as they grow old, and they acquire from their

environment’s behaviours, languages, accents, and beliefs. In addition, children are the only

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hope for change in a society, therefore; if any community wants to end violence, it has to

work on the development of all its children without any discrimination. The only way for this

to be applied is to forge a new educational system that encourages students to think and

decide by themselves, to end ignorance once and for all, and to provide a healthy environment

for children in schools and homes as well. To conclude, creating nonviolent societies is a

complicated task that requires a lot of work from everyone involved within the society, and in

order to reach this aim everyone has to work on how we treat and educate children because

the future of any nation lies in the small hands of its pupils.

D) Violence against teachers in Morocco:

Many research papers were made by Moulay Ismail University students about

violence. One of these research papers was about violence against teachers in Morocco. In

this paper, the researcher made a wide explanation about violence in Morocco, how domestic

violence affects the student’s thinking and behaviours, and how violence that was practiced

by teachers in classrooms against students causes anger and unwillingness to learn within the

students. Then, she talked about how students become the ones who practice violence against

their teachers outside and inside classrooms.

This researcher depended on interviews in conducting her research. She interviewed

20 teachers (10 of them are males and 10 are females) from Sidi Mejber School / Fezna in

Errachidia. Most of the questions asked were in Arabic language. In addition, after getting her

answers on tape, translating the feedbacks, and analyzing the findings, the conclusions of her

research were as follows:

-teachers cannot control their classrooms anymore because of the cultural change, behaviours,

and attitudes of students in classrooms.

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-Students aren’t disciplined, respective, and willing to learn, so the teachers tend to beat them

in order to control the classroom.

-Students want to get better marks in exams, but instead of pulling additional efforts and

working harder; they threaten their teachers and sometimes hurt them physically using knives

or throwing stones at them.

To conclude, the researcher deduced that the problem of violence in Morocco is more

complicated than anyone can imagine. The violence that was culturally reserved for elders

and teachers to use in order to impose themselves on children and young students have been

reversed now as some sort of rebellion by students themselves who became more violent than

they have ever been. The researcher suggested that the state have to find a solution to end up

this aggression against teachers because it is impossible to teach in such circumstances and

unhealthy environment.

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 This literature review led me to think that the problem of violence in Morocco needs

to be looked at deeply and seriously. In my research, I will try to discover the origins of

violence on a wide extent and discuss its effects on the youth’s development and behaviour in

Morocco. Finally, I will tend to find some ways and strategies that can be used in order to

control aggression in Morocco. Therefore, I will seek for answers to the following questions:

-What are the origins of violence and what are its causes?

-Is domestic violence responsible for the violent behaviours of children?

-Is the state violence responsible for the frustration of the youth community in Morocco?

-Is violence on children necessary in homes and classrooms or there are other alternatives?

-Are freedom, morals, and values necessary for having a nonviolent society?

-What are the causes of the different types of violence that exist in Morocco?

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Chapter2: Methodology

If we take a closer look at the topic that I have chosen to conduct a research on which

is “the effects of violence on the Moroccan youth’s behavior and development”, we can

deduce that it belongs to the field of social studies. In order to conduct this research, I will

depend on the participant observation method; therefore, I will depend on my observation of

the Moroccan youth’s everyday life, and I will analyze the violent behaviors of the Moroccan

youth that I witness personally as a Moroccan or read in the newspapers. The samples of my

research will be mainly the youth that I encounter in Ifrane and are 15 to 29 years old. In

order to gather the necessary data for the research, I will read more academic papers and

articles about the topic, and I will analyze the gathered data for to get to some generalizations

about the topic. The research will be a qualitative research based on observation and the

analysis of the available data gathered from different sources as State Violence in Morocco

which is a report made by the World Organization against torture, the analysis of existing

research papers about the subject, and some academic researches made by professors

specialized in sociology and psychology concerning violence, its causes, types, and its effects

on individuals. I will go through the data that I will be collecting, and I will state the results in

an organized way, stating each chapter that has a connection with violence in Morocco,

clarifying it, and talking about its consequences and effects on the youth. Finally, I will

suggest some of the solutions or strategies that can be applied by the youth themselves, their

teachers and professors, their parents, and the government as well in order to change the

situation by ending violence or controlling it in order to erase its negative effects on the

Moroccan youth.

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 A) Research questions:

-How can violence impact the youth’s behaviour?

-How can violence affect the youth’s development?

-How can we end violence within the youth in Morocco and what are the requisites for a

nonviolent community?

B) Research hypotheses:

The hypotheses that I will work on in this paper are as follows: violence exists in

Morocco because of ignorance, oppression, and repression, the cultural and social norms that

support violence in Morocco are the main explanation for the youth bad or violent behaviours,

the different types of violence that are practiced by teachers or by students with each other in

school are responsible for how the youth perceive school and affect their education

negatively, the repression of protests using unnecessary power, social discrimination, and

poverty can be considered as explanations to the violent behaviours made by or upon the

youth.

C) Research purpose:

The purpose of this research is twofold. The first purpose is to explore the social and

psychological origins of violence in Morocco and its effects on the youth’s behavior. The

second purpose is related to the first which is to discover the effects violence on the youth’s

general development in the Moroccan society.

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Chapter3: The Moroccan society and violence

A) Types of violence in Morocco:

Johan Galtung which is a Norwegian Sociologist and the founder of the discipline of

“peace and conflict studies” in Oslo 1952 classified violence into three main types: direct

violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. In his work of “Violence, Peace, and

Peace Research”, he described the types of violence as a triangle that any society has to get

rid of in order for the peace to emerge. As every third world nation struggling to progress and

improve its situation, Morocco deals with different huge social problems and violence is one

of them. If we want to analyze violence in Morocco, we should classify aggression that exists

in this country into these three types mentioned above.

1) The direct violence:

Based on Johan’s Galtung researches, war, physical abuse, verbal abuse, fights, sexual

assaults, and murder are different aggressions that can be seen as direct violence examples.

Direct violence is the perceivable type of aggression when an individual does or says

something to another with the intention to hurt him physically or psychologically. This type of

violence is directly linked to the cultural and structural violence, for direct violence is the

result and the cause of these two types. In Morocco, direct violence is committed by many

individuals, and it can be observed most of the time and repetitively in the streets, schools,

houses, and public spaces.

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 a) Street and School violence:

In any Moroccan street, especially in the ones populated with low class individuals,

the one can witness several manifestations of direct violence. Lately, many web media outlets

shared different videos and articles about varieties of assaults and abuses. One of the most

famous cases of direct violence is the case shared by Hespress news website in 4 may 2018 of

a young man who’s 19 years old who worked in a shop of clothes in Tangiers, this individual

was a victim of different shapes of aggression by several law enforcers. He was insulted by

one of the law enforcers, and because he didn’t accept it and talked back, he was abducted and

put aggressively in a patrol car. Then he got a lot of fists on his head, and it resulted in a lot of

damages on the brain that ended in partial paralysis. This is just one case of the large number

of cases where direct violence is manifested in the Moroccan youth’s daily lives.

Verbal and physical abuses are widespread in the streets and schools of Morocco. In

the Moroccan middle and high schools, teachers are considered to be an idol, parent, and

educator of students, and they are the only source of knowledge available for students who

belong to poor families. Students who spend more than 8 hours each day inside the classroom

are victims to different insults and are most of the time humiliated by the way their teachers

treat them. In addition, teachers depend on beating by using wooden sticks and sometimes

fists by using their own hands in order to educate or discipline their students. Nowadays,

students are doing the same by doing different aggressive behaviours towards their teachers,

some of them have gone too far and injured their educators physically, some threaten them in

order to get better grades in exams, and the others insult and humiliate them.

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 b) Domestic violence:

Domestic violence can be a good example of direct violence, and it is used to maintain

power or control over a close partner or a family member. This kind of violence in Morocco

can be allocated to the dominant masculine culture and the authority that religion gives to the

man over his wife and children. Victims of this type of aggression can be of any age, race,

gender, or marital status, but in Morocco the main victim is the woman or the wife and

children. According to Amnesty report published in 20 May 2016, a survey made by

Morocco’s High commission for planning in 2009 by interviewing 8300 women across the

country found that 62.8% of women reported experiencing psychological, physical, sexual or

economic violence in the year leading up to the survey.

Women in Morocco suffer from different shapes of aggression inside their houses with

their husbands, and sometimes the extreme physical violence can be witnessed in the streets.

In the report published by Amnesty, there were clear evidences that there are several laws that

protect the one who was aggressed by another, but the biggest problem is the evidence or the

witnesses that have to be provided in order to apply the laws. Domestic is most of the time

behind walls and no one can witness the different violent behaviors that a woman can

experience. Rape and sexual assault is one of the most complicated aggressions that a wife

and experience by her husband, and it occurs when she is forced to have a sexual intercourse

by her husband and against her will. This case of violence is rarely discussed by women in

Morocco as they believe it is against the Islamic religion to consider the forced sexual

relationship with their husbands as a rape or a crime. That is because of several religious texts

that encourages the man to be violent against his wife in order to force her to respect his

decisions and obey him. In fact, women have to have the courage to stand up for her their

rights and sue whoever commits any kind of violence towards her even if it is the closest one

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to her, for most of the time there is wrong understanding of religious texts and many take

advantage on the ignorance of the others in order to impose their beliefs or thinking.

Nowadays, women aren’t the only victims of domestic violence; men can also be seen

as the victims of aggression by their female partners. In Meknes and at this date 17 June 2017,

there was the foundation of the association that defends men against women’s violence. The

president of the association Fouad Al Hamzi stated that the first aim of the foundation of this

association is to defend men and sue women for any kind or shape of violence that can be

done upon men. Several men shared their experience during that first meeting, one of them

was a victim of physical violence and threatening to never see his children again, and another

was the victim of fraud by his wife that took all of his money and took advantage on his

exaggerated trust. In addition, this kind of domestic violence against men has happened to

men of different ages, and the smallest one who was a victim was 26 years old and the elder

one 76 years old.

Children which are the future of any nation are the biggest victims of domestic

violence. According to Diane’s research entitled “Origins of violence and strategies for

change”, children are the ones who learn and imitate every action and behaviours that they

witness inside their houses and in their environment. When the child witnesses any kind of

verbal or physical violence, he tries to understand how it occurs and what the result of that

kind of violence witnessed is. Then, the child tries to impose himself by using violence that he

witnessed. In other cases, the child suffers from different psychological illnesses if he watches

his mother getting beaten by his father or the opposite. In addition, children in Morocco are

also beaten directly by their parents for educational purposes. According to Diane, the use of

violence as a pedagogical means isn’t tolerated by psychologists because it leads to different

kinds of mental and physical conditions. Educating children can be done differently other than

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using verbal and physical aggression. Diane’s focuses on working on educating the child

using knowledge and reasoning in order to encourage him and help him build his personality

in a healthy environment.

c) Violence in public spaces:

Violence in public spaces is the most dangerous kind of aggression in terms of its

effects on the victim and the witnesses. Public spaces are the places that belong to the

individuals, and are always populated with a large number of people as gardens, streets,

parking lots, and stadiums. This shape of violence can be either physical or psychological, and

it can be under different circumstances as in personal conflicts, robberies using weapons as

knives, insults and verbal abuse, sexual assaults, and bullying. Lately, there were different

reports about aggressions that have happened in Morocco’s public places.

There were different famous cases of sexual assaults that happened in public places in

Morocco. One of these cases is the one that happened in 18 August 2018 in a Moroccan bus

where three teenage boys from Casablanca sexually assaulted a woman; in addition, they have

filmed the assault using a phone and posted it online. Many international media outlets talked

about this incidence as the Independent English news website, in their article they have talked

about the fact that passengers didn’t interfere, the bus driver ignored the incident and didn’t

stop the bus, and the teenagers were laughing and having fun with each other while

committing their disgraceful crime. By examining this incident that happened in a public bus,

we can ask different questions as: why did they commit such crime toward a poor girl in a

bus? What was their intention from doing this kind of violent behaviour? Why the passengers

and the bus driver didn’t interfere?

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 Even though Sexual assault is considered to be a crime in Morocco and there are laws

that deal with such crimes as rape, bullying, and verbal and physical abuse, this bad violent

behaviour is widespread in Morocco. There are many causes for such behaviour, some of

these causes can be repression and inhibition for religious purposes, for when the one is

repressing his sexual urges because of his religious restraints he forces himself to act against

his nature and instincts for a long time until marriage. This repression can result in an

explosive and a powerful will in doing what the one was fighting to do; therefore, the one

cannot stop his needs anymore and the instinct control the body behaviors and responses. The

passengers didn’t interfere because they were afraid of the consequences of their interference;

for example, someone could have tried to help the girl then he would be injured by fists from

the teenagers or even killed by a knife.

Another kind of direct violence is the one that Moroccans have witnessed many times

in the Soccer Stadiums. Every famous soccer team in Morocco has a large number of

supporters in every city in Morocco, and these supporters gather with each other and form an

Ultra. These Ultra writes songs to encourage their teams, travel with their teams to different

cities in Morocco, and support their teams in games. Lately, the one can see a lot of violence

inside stadiums; for instance, there can be insults between rivals in soccer games, fighting in

groups between the Ultras, Ultras fighting with the police officers, and damaging the

infrastructure of the stadium.

The game between Raja Casablanca and As Far Rabat wasn’t a regular game, it was a

massacre. Two men died, 54 fans were injured brutally after the end of the game, and 200

individuals were arrested. There are different videos on the net that shows that this incident is

still going on till today, and this kind of violence can also affect individuals that are outside

the stadiums. In 2013, after a soccer game ended in Rabat, many young individuals made

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several violent behaviours as they attacked different places in the city, broke cars, stolen

different things form several shops, and fought back against the police officers. By examining

this kind of behaviours, the one can deduce that there are several problems as poverty,

ignorance, repression, oppression, lack of opportunities, and lack of freedom that drive these

youth to commit such unforgettable direct violent behaviours.

2) The structural violence:

Structural violence is the worst kind of violence that affects a lot of people all at once.

The Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung describes this type of violence as the injustice

exploitation built on a system that generates wealth for the few and poverty for the many, and

it is responsible for damaging the satisfaction of basic human needs such as: survival, identity,

welfare, and freedom. Structural violence represses everyone’s ability to develop his full

humanity by privileging some ethnicities, genders, and classes over others; in addition, it

enforces the inequalities between individuals which results in unequal opportunities for

resources, for education, and for respect. This type of violence is the main basis of any

capitalist, patriarchal, or dominator system in the world.

Galtung added that Structural violence feed on the biased media that gives the

importance to certain lives over the others; for example, when there is a terrorist attack that

results in killing three or two lives in a First world country, the whole world media talks about

it, but when hundreds of Africans die brutally in the same way no one talks about it.The racial

discrimination and the social stratification are two forms of structural violence that can drive

the individuals to commit different kinds of violence as a response. There are many

significant results to this kind of violence as terrorism, racism, sexism, and suicide.

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 Structural violence takes place when the economic and political system is expanding

the gap between social classes, and it results in erasing the middle class and forcing the lower

class to live under unacceptable circumstances. This may be the case in Morocco because of

the low salaries, the lack of job opportunities, and the lack of education opportunities.

According to an article published in 2017 by France 24, the minimum wage in the public

sector is 3000 MAD, and in the private sector is 2570.86 MAD. By looking at these numbers,

we can deduce that it is nearly impossible for the youths to live a normal life in Morocco

depending on these salaries; moreover, lack of job opportunities and low paid jobs forces the

youths to live with their parents for many years that some of them become 40 years old and

cannot be dependent economically.

Based on the a 2015 report of the Ministry of Public Affairs and Governance,

Morocco’s society can be divided into three main classes which are the following: Firstly, The

lower class or the poor class in which the individual income is less than 1-6 dollars a day, the

individuals within this class are mostly ignorant and not aware of what is happening around

them. Secondly, the middle class which consist of 52.6 percent of the Moroccan families in

which the individual income is of 530-2000 dollars, and try to raise their children the best

possible considering their financial potential. Finally, the higher class or the rich class in

which the individual income exceeds 2800 dollars; in addition, this class consist of owners of

firms, agriculture lands, international companies, and higher governmental positions.

By analyzing this social classification, we can deduce that the youth in Morocco

cannot be compared or generalized within one single angle, for the difference of the

environment based on their social class and the circumstances in which they live in. For

instance, the quality of education of a young individual who lives in Morocco and belongs to

the higher class is much better and universal than the quality of education of another young

25
individual of the same age but form another social scale. In addition, the wide gaps between

these social classes reinforce the structural violence, and the majority of the Moroccan society

which is the lower class suffers from low quality of life which can lead its youth to commit

different violent behaviours.

Years from now, Morocco was and still one of the countries that can be seen as

patriarchal, for the male is more respected and given more importance than the female.

Nowadays, things have changed and females are taking back violently their importance and

leadership in the economic, political, and social frame in Morocco. Today, females in

Morocco have more chances to find a job than a male which is a good thing that can

contribute in the social development, but this kind of discrimination affects the male youth

negatively. Lately, a respectable number of male youths protested in Kenitra wearing female

clothes and shouting for their right to be accepted for jobs in leather factories, for gender

discrimination in the job opportunities sector results in negative outcomes on the male youth’s

development and well-being.

To conclude, structural violence is the dangerous type of aggression that expands by

tie in Morocco, for there are no true intentions for economic or political change. The

Moroccan society is under big threats as the more structural violence takes place the more

direct violence occurs in houses, streets, schools, and public places.

3) The cultural violence:

Galtung describes cultural violence as the prevailing attitudes and beliefs that justify

structural and direct violence, and this justification of violence makes violence acceptable,

tolerable, and natural. He claims that the individual shapes and forms his assumptions about

himself and his environment by using his feelings of superiority or inferiority based on class,

26
race, gender, religion, and nationality that are introduced to the individual since childhood.

Galtung thinks that the conflicts that are originated from religious beliefs as Christianity,

Judaism, and Islam are a good example of cultural violence. This type of violence can be

dangerous in terms of the masses of people that can be influenced by different ideologies as

religion and racism and commit different kinds of violent behaviours such as imposing beliefs

on individuals, mass killing, conquering states for religious purposes, and terrorism.

Morocco is considered to be an Islamic state, and most of its laws and constitution are

based on the Islamic religion. Islam in Morocco is considered to be more that a religion but a

way of life. Every family tries to teach their children the basics of their religion since an early

age. Even though, Morocco is a tolerant country that is known of its varied society that

includes Jews, Christians, and Muslims, the individuals who aren’t Muslims aren’t seen by

the majority of extremists as normal individuals but they are seen as ones who are wrong for

not sharing the same beliefs as others. This religious identity of Moroccans that can be

sometimes extreme drives them to hate and hurt others, who don’t belong to the same

religion, and the ignorance can be added as a fuel to the hate then the results wouldn’t be

positive at all. Extremism in Islam is the one responsible for the violent behaviours that feed

on hate and frustration in order to commit cultural violence such as terrorism.

Nowadays, Morocco is pulling tremendous efforts against terrorism, and this resulted

in not being a victim of such crime since the attack that occurred in Marrakech in 2011. In a

book entitled “More Freedom, Less Terror?” Written by Dalia D. K., Frederic W., Audra

K.G., and Dale Stahl there was clear evidence of how can freedom, equality, knowledge, and

tolerance eliminate terrorism. In the chapter Morocco, they have shown how terrorism in

27
Morocco was a sign of dissatisfaction of the quality of life, and 16 May 2003 attack in

Casablanca was an obvious cultural violence where 43 persons were killed. There was also

another explanation to this terrorist attack which is poverty, lack of individual rights, and the

lack of constitutional amendments that protects the rights of individuals.

According to the same article, Terrorism in Morocco has been controlled because of

the efforts of liberalization and political inclusion that have been applied by the leaders lately;

in addition, this has led to the moderation of radical groups and to minimize the levels of

violence. The author added that the application of real solid democracy is a necessity to allow

the individuals to have equal rights and opportunities, and prevent them from falling into the

claws of extremists that would drive them to a dark path where terrorism and different kinds

of violence are accepted and considered as a good act.

Cultural violence can be illustrated in violent acts as racism and exclusion of

individuals that are different in terms of racial ethnicity or social class or gender. Lately,

anyone can notice the emergence of different individuals from different African countries to

Morocco with the intention to immigrate to Europe, but after their attempts failed they

become stuck in a third world country as Morocco. Most of these individuals are nowadays

living in the streets in unbearable circumstances; in addition, they get insulted for their skin

color by Moroccan teenagers and sometimes abused physically and verbally by elders. There

was this article in Hespress written by a professor of sociology that shows how Sub Saharans

Africans suffer in different cities in Morocco because of racism and exclusion of job

opportunities.

As a conclusion, cultural violence promotes hate, terrorism, and homicides, and it

should be radically detached from its roots of ignorance and extremism. The Moroccan youths

28
have to work harder in order to learn and form this defensive knowledge that would prevent

them from falling into cultural violence that would ruin their lives and drive them to the

triangle of violence that promotes hate and never ends.

29
 B) The triangle of violence:

Figure 1:

An illustration of the three types of violence according to Galtung’s

“Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,”

According to Galtung analysis of violence, the one can deduce that violence can take

place and start at any corner of the triangle, direct or structural or cultural, and this violence

can be transmitted from a corner to another which will create some sort of endless loop.

Galtung thinks that when the structural violence is institutionalized and the cultural violence

is internalized, direct violence takes place and it starts occurring repetitively. He added that

30
this triangle of violence should be faced with another triangle of peace in which each type of

violence will be eliminated by its opposite; for instance, the hate can be erased with love and

cultural violence can be eliminated with cultural peace.

Structural and Cultural violence are the types of violence that are hidden and non-

visible; in addition, these two are the ones that cause direct violence which is the visible type

of violence. That’s why, when any kind of direct violence takes place the one should dig

deeper to find the roots of this violence in question in order to control it or end it. For

instance, when we talk about terrorism which is the action of killing people with the aim to

terror the masses of people, we should have a deeper look into the roots of this direct

violence, and the one will deduce that it is because of religion and extremism which is the

cultural violence. As a conclusion, Galtung assumes that in order to end violence we have to

deal with the roots of this violence in question and we should deal with the whole triangle not

just one angle in order to end violence.

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 C) The Moroccan society and violence:

1) The youth situation in Morocco:

The overall situation of the youth in Morocco can be described as complicated because

of several problems that the Moroccan society suffers from which are poverty, ignorance,

oppression, repression, and marginalization. According to the World Bank Country Economic

Memorandum on Morocco (2018) “Emerging by Investing in Intangible Capital” which

proposes ways to build Morocco in 2040, Morocco has made remarkable progress over the

past 15 years in the economic, social, and political sectors; however, the youth still suffer

from the lack of job opportunities, for only one in two young persons between the ages of 25

and 35 has a job that is often insecure, lack of individual freedoms, and the poor quality of

education and health services.

Unemployment in Morocco is a serious problem that empowers inequality, poverty,

and the low quality of life. According to an interview conducted in 2014 by The Guardian

news website with Abdeslam Seddiki which is the minister of labor and social affairs in

Morocco, “In Morocco, 4/5 unemployed people are aged 15 to 34. Although the

unemployment rate has declined over the past decade, youth unemployment is still twice that

of the total population. In 2003 youth unemployment was 19.3% and general unemployment

was 9.2%.” In addition, the unemployment rate of the university graduates in Morocco is

higher than the rate of unemployment of the youth of middle-level education and people

without a high-school diploma.

Individual freedoms in Morocco are restricted by the social norms, the laws, and

religion. According to an analysis of Islam and the spread of individual freedoms written by

Ahmed Benchemsi in 2015, “the struggle for individual freedoms is set between two

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ideologically opposed sides, the liberals versus the Islam-conservatives, with the royal palace

as an arbiter.” The youth in Morocco suffer from the lack of the basic human rights, and they

find themselves stuck between the restriction of their rights and their freedoms. For instance,

Morocco is considered to be an Islamic state and there are some individuals in Morocco who

are atheists, these individuals are living a suppressed life of frustration and weakness as they

are always afraid of getting caught by the police for it is a crime in Morocco to switch from

Islam to atheism or another religion. The Article 220 of the Moroccan penal code punishes

with a prison sentence ranging between six months and three years “anyone using seduction

means in order to shake a Muslim’s faith or convert him to another religion.” The expression

“seduction” means in Moroccan terminology refers to all advocacy methods used to convince

an individual to adopt religious beliefs different from the officially sanctioned Islamic ones.

There are other Anti-Freedom laws that are applied in Morocco, and most of these

laws are directly derived from the holy book of Islam which is the Quran. For instance, there

are some laws that regulate sexuality of the Moroccan society, and prohibit sexual

intercourses between same-sex individuals and the unmarried straight individuals. According

to the Article 489 of the penal code, the unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex are

penalized to a six-month to three-year prison sentence. Even heterosexual intercourse is

prohibited when performed by non–religiously married individuals, under penalty of one to

six months in prison (Article 490).

The freedom of press is one of the most important freedoms that allow the individuals

to know about the truth of what is happening around them, and the freedom of press is crucial

in order to develop and improve any society or state. This kind of freedom is absolutely

needed in the field of media and press, for these two outlets are the ones responsible for the

collective conscience and the freedom of thought of any society. Morocco’s 2011 constitution

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guarantees freedom of the press, but the press law prohibits criticism of the monarchy and

Islam. In addition, this law bars independent coverage of certain taboo subjects, including the

royal family and the status of Western Sahara. Defamation is a criminal offense punishable by

up to one year in prison and a fine of $12,000. Youseff Jajili, editor in chief of the weekly

Alaan, was arrested in January 2013 and charged with criminal defamation for an article in

which he reported that a government minister had used public money to order alcohol while

on a taxpayer-funded trip. Jajili was fined $6,000 and given a two-month suspended sentence

in June 2013.

According to of the human rights bill, the article 10 protects any individual’s right to

hold his own opinion and express it freely without being penalized by the government,

freedom of expression can take many shapes as saying your opinion out loud either in real life

in public demonstrations and protests or in the internet or social media, writing an article or a

book that expresses an opinion, and publishing any works of arts as paintings, movies, or

songs. Lately in Morocco there have been different riots and protests in different cities, these

demonstrations was held because of poverty, oppression, repression, and marginalization. As

was stated in an online article of the UK independent, in an old mining city called Jerada in

2018, there have been several protestations because of poverty, lack of job opportunities, and

negligence for more than 20 years since the mines were closed. These demonstrations were

faced with unnecessary power from the police officers, and there have been many clashes that

resulted in dangerous injuries.

To conclude, Morocco has made some big steps forward concerning the human rights

application especially after the 2011 constitution that isn’t totally applied by the law

enforcers. However, the laws and the social norms in Morocco are considered to be as an

34
impediment to development and freedom that would prevent the youth from evolving,

developing, and ending the behaviours that are linked to violence.

2) The stance of Islam on violence:

The religious beliefs should be a personal and private matter or choice; however, in

Morocco Islam is practiced in a social setting where the one attends any sort of religious

services. Morocco is considered to be an Islamic state, and there is no separation between the

state and religion as the laws and constitution are based on Islam. Quran is taught to kids

since their early childhood, and their families educate them to obey the Quran verses and

sharia. This Islamic education in Morocco has led some of the youth to be extremely attached

to their religion that they consider as a collective religion that everyone should be a part of.

If the one focuses on Jihad verses, caravan raids, and the Islamic punishments to

several crimes, Islam may be seen as a religion that promotes violence. However, there might

be several contradictions between the Hadith and Quran, these contradictions may be

understood in a wrong unbalanced way, and it would drive the one to fall into radicalism or

extremism. This has happened years from now when there were several terrorist groups in

Morocco, and these groups were responsible for different crimes against humanity because

they were a victim of structural violence and their understanding of Islam that was blinded by

violence that they couldn’t see the peace in Islam anymore.

Each Muslim has the duty to maintain and preserve religion, and there is a term for

this duty which is Jihad. According to the manual of Shafi’i about Sharia law “Reliance of the

Traveller”, Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the

35
word “Mujahada” signifying warfare to establish the religion. However, there are many

opinions about Jihad in Islam, and Jihad can have several meanings at the same time.

According to the Dictionary of Islam, the word Jihad can have two meanings: an inner

spiritual struggle of keeping believing in Islam under any circumstances and control the self

against its needs, and an outer physical struggle against the enemies of Islam which may take

a violent military form or non-violent form.

Caravan raids are the military expeditions that were led by The Prophet Muhammad

with the aim of promoting Islam and enforcing the Islamic state. The raids can be seen

generally as violent and offensive and were carried out to weaken the economy of Quraysh by

attacking the trade goods of caravans financed by the unfaithful in Mecca. Even though, the

expeditions were extremely violent, there were rules assigned by the prophet of not killing

children and women, and these raids were originally defensive strategies because before the

expeditions the Muslims were weak, oppressed, and marginalized and there weren’t options

other than fighting back.

The Islamic criminal law is based on accordance with the Sharia, and this law divides

crimes into three different categories depending on the crime committed. Firstly, there is

Hudud which are the crimes against God. Secondly, there is Qisas which are the crimes

against an individual or a family member. For the first type of crimes that deals with the

boundaries of God that shouldn’t be crossed, the punishment for these crimes is the capital

punishment either by beheading for homosexuality, fornication, and rebellion against the

lawful Caliph, and by stoning for adultery. For the second type of crimes which is Qisas,

whenever there is a crime done by an individual toward another, the justice must be served

based on the "eye for an eye" rule.

36
 Domestic violence is allowed in Islam based on Surah, An-Nisa, 34 in the Quran

which explains that a husband hitting a wife is allowed. Several researchers in Islam claim

that the Islamic law encourages domestic violence against women, when a husband suspects

disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, and ill conduct in his wife. There are different scholar

views about the same verse that gives the man the authority to beat his wife, one of them is

that the verse claim does not support hitting a woman, but separating from her. While other

scholars that are conservatives claim that Muslim husbands are permitted to beat their wives

lightly and shout at them for the intention of respect and obedience.

Morocco has made huge steps forward concerning its prevention and control of

radicalism that is always responsible for terrorism, and the state tried to embrace a moderate

and tolerant approach to Islam that would prevent the extremist groups and ideas from

conquering the youth’s minds. In addition, Moroccan Islam follows the Maliki School of

Islamic thought and is heavily influenced by Sufism, a mystical theology and philosophy that

focuses on peace and a withdrawal from materialism. According to a research made by

Murphy, George Washington University, “the Moroccan government maintains a tight leash

over the Moroccan Islam that has come to develop as a moderate and tolerant interpretation of

the Quran. That is, an interpretation that focuses on tolerance and love of neighbours, which

imams say is “the real Islam.”

As a conclusion, no one can ignore the different types of violence that are allowed in

Islam as in any other religion, but there is some kind of balance between violence and peace.

In addition, there are several important values that the Muslim should be embracing based on

the bibliography of the prophet as acceptance, humility, love, peace, and respect. According

to Charles Mathewes characterizes the peace verses as saying that, "if others want peace, you

can accept them as peaceful even if they are not Muslim." As an example, Mathewes cites the

37
second Surah which commands believers not to transgress limits in warfare: "fight in God's

cause against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits [in aggression]; God does not

love transgressors" (2:190)

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 3) The causes of direct violence in Morocco:

The structural and cultural violence are reasons for the direct violence that exists in

Morocco. Violence is always the cause or the root of another shape of violence; for instance,

when someone gets abused, molested, or aggressed he gets these urges to revenge and make

the one who assaulted him go through the same experience, eventually this results in a loop of

exchanged violence. In Morocco, the cultural violence can be represented as the gender

discrimination, the religious beliefs promoting violence, and the cultural inheritance that

promotes violence; in addition, the structural violence can take many shapes as poverty,

ignorance, oppression, and repression.

a) Poverty in Morocco:

Based on the report of the Word Bank in 2007, Morocco moving out of poverty,

Poverty in Morocco is considered to be multidimensional as it entails many forms of

exclusion. For instance, the poor suffer from different types of discrimination compared to the

rich in Morocco; the poor are excluded from services, social networks, and from power which

affects their well-being as it hasn’t to do only with the income but also the feelings of

inclusion and dignity. Most of the poor in Morocco feel disempowered, unconfident, unable

to influence their officials, and unable to assert their rights or maintaining their dignity.

According to recent official statistics by the Moroccan High Commission for Planning,

700.000 Moroccan families are on the verge of utter poverty, especially in the rural

areas. This number is enormous as it represents millions of individuals and youth who are

suffering from the extreme poverty. According to the National Household Consumption and

Expenditure Survey conducted in 2013-2014. Morocco has 1.6 million citizens living in

poverty, nearly 80% of whom live in the countryside. This means a total of 1,275,000 people

39
live below the poverty line in the country, and children are the first victims of this social and

economic inequality. To conclude, poverty is one of the serious problems that in addition to

the circumstances and environment can cause several types of aggression as robberies, sexual

assault, suicides, and homicides.

b) Ignorance in Morocco:

Since 1980s, there were several attempts by the state to cure the Moroccan society

from Ignorance. According to United Nations, Economic commission for Africa Report 2015,

the illiteracy rate in Morocco decreased from 55 per cent in 1994 to 36.7 per cent in 2012. In

rural areas, this rate has significantly decreased from 75 per cent to 51.2 per cent during the

same period. Youth that are 15 to 24 years old literacy also saw a big improvement from 58

per cent in 1994 to 84.6 per cent in 2012. This improvement is more significant among girls

for whom literacy increased from 46 per cent to 79 per cent, against 71 per cent and 90.1 per

cent for boys during the same period. This improvement in terms of numbers is significant,

but the ideologies and the way of thinking of most of the Moroccan society don’t change even

if they become literate. Ignorance can take many shapes other than not knowing how to read

and write as believing in superstition and many other aspects of illiteracy from the daily life

of Moroccans who belong to the lower income class. As a conclusion, Illiteracy or ignorance

can be a crucial reason for aggression as when the one isn’t educated, he cannot live in a

civilised society and respect the laws and rules of a modern society that considers any shape

of violence as a crime.

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 c) Oppression and repression in Morocco:

Oppression and repression are two significant structural aggressions that are invisible,

but they are more powerful and crucial than the visible types of violence. Oppression can be

described as the prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or exercise of authority. There have been

several examples of oppression in Morocco; one of these examples is the way an illiterate

man treats his wife in Morocco using force and violence to control and influence his wife’s

acts, thinking, and desires. Another example of oppression is the neglect of the state towards

the city of Jerada; the population was forgotten and neglected for more than 20 years, after the

mines have closed the population found themselves without any income or available jobs

other than the risky ones that consist on going down to mine in the wells and staying there for

hours just for 1 or 2 dollars a day. These inhuman circumstances resulted in many diseases

that affected many lives; the main illnesses that the miners and their families suffer from are

lungs cancer, skin cancer, and pneumonia.

Repression represents the use of violence and force in order to control a group of

people, or the restraint, prevention, or inhibition of a feeling or desire. Repression in Morocco

is widespread either by the power of cultural norms or by the power of the state law enforcers.

Many youths in Morocco are subjected to the restraint of their feelings and desires because of

the Religious laws and inhibitions that prevent the individual from having relationships with a

different gender. In addition, repression is also illustrated in the way the law enforcers force

the protesters by violence to go back home and stop the manifestations, and this has been the

case in several occasions and protestations in Morocco. According to an article about

Morocco: Protesters, activists and journalists detained over Rif protests must be released

written by Heba Morayef which is a North Africa Research Director at Amnesty International,

security forces have arrested hundreds of protesters, including children and several journalists

41
over the largely peaceful protests. At least 410 people are currently detained, some of whom

were arrested from their homes. In addition, the protestors who were arrested are subjected to

torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. To conclude, oppression and

repression are two faces of the same coin which is structural violence that causes different

types of violence as suicides, homicides, physical and verbal abuse.

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Chapter4: Findings and discussion:

1) Description and analysis of the data:

This research paper deals with the effects of violence on the youth development and

behaviour. In order to discover these effects we have to seek for the origins of these effects in

an individual; therefore, analyzing the effects of violence on children is the best way to find

out about the impacts of aggression on the youth. There was a research made by Narvaez

which is a professor of psychology about the link between early environmental experience

and the situation of children in the future. The results of his research were as follows:

Analysis of academic papers and researches about the topic:

It was proven that traumatization which is some kind of psychological pain caused by

violence or by witnessing violent behaviours, neglect, and abuse in childhood result in:

-Suppressed immune system, it means the inability to produce a normal immune

response (the immune system is the system responsible for fighting diseases and illnesses)

-An overactive stress response system (anxiety and high levels of stress)

-Underdeveloped emotions and emotion system, and it means the lack of the social

intelligence that result in doing the wrong behaviours at the wrong time.

-Malformed endocrine system, the endocrine system includes glands that are

responsible of producing hormones; in addition, these glands are the ones responsible of

regulating the functions of different organs of the body. These glands interfere in different

important activities of the body as sexual development, heart rate, cellular metabolism,

reproduction, and digestion.

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 -Poor integration of the brain hemispheres, the brain hemispheres are the right and left

parts of the brain. The right part is responsible for feelings, creativity, intuition, visualization,

and concentration. The left part is responsible for reasoning, strategy skills, analyzing skills,

and memorization. When there is a poor integration of the brain hemispheres the one cannot

have good connections between the two parts of the brain.

-Malformed in number and functionality of neurotransmitters, the neurotransmitter is a

chemical messenger which transmits signals from a neuron which is a nerve cell to another

across the body. When the functionality and number of these neurotransmitters is malformed

it affects the whole body responses negatively.

-Underdeveloped corpus callosum, the corpus callosum is a pathway in the brain that

connects the right part of the brain to the left one, and it is responsible for the allowing

information to pass between the two parts of the brain.

On the other hand Narvaez’s research results show that good early experiences for

children provide different response:

-The positive touch results in children with conscience development, self-regulation,

social engagement, greater empathy, cognitive development, and less aggression.

-The maternal social support which means the education, time investment, love, and

care of the mother toward her child results in a child who have greater cooperation, improved

sense of self-efficacy, and better cognitive development.

-Breast feeding results in development of conscience, good self-control, less

aggression, and concern about wrongdoing.

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 -Responsive care givers which are the parents result in less depression, less

aggression, greater cooperation, behaviour regulation, and higher intelligence.

Participant observation method:

Similar to every city in Morocco, Ifrane’s population suffers from different types of

violence that affects the youth’s behaviour and development in many ways. Ifrane’s small

population consists on 14 659 citizen based on the latest survey done by the Moroccan

Planning Commission, most of the population are young individuals of ages between 15 and

30 years old. As a resident in Ifrane for more than 14 years, I have had the chance to learn and

develop myself by observing people’s behaviours, attitudes, interactions, and discourses.

Based on the method I have chosen for conducting this research which is participant

observation, I have made different observations of violence in Ifrane. In addition, the direct

violence is the type of violence that is noticeable and occurs most of the time in Ifrane’s

streets, gardens, houses, and schools. The observations I have gathered are as follows:

School violence (specifically in Al Arz Middle School and Allal Al Fassi High

School):

-Students play violent games inside the middle school whenever they have spare time, and the

punishments they get by their teachers are physical using wooden bats or fists.

-Students seem to be living in their own small society where the powerful individuals are in

control of the others and affect their behaviours.

-The hard working students who get good marks and participate in class are getting abused,

and some of their classmates make fun of them by insults, and others beat them at the end of

the class or on their way home.

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-Some teachers who are nice in class and treat students as friends and deal with them in a

good way are getting threatened by some violent students for getting better marks in exams.

-Some teachers cannot control their classrooms and suffer from different types of aggression

inside the classes. For instance, there is a Physics teacher who teaches in the middle school

who is subject to different kinds of violence inside and outside the classroom. His students

throw papers, eggs, tomatoes, and rocks at their teacher and each other and some of them

assault him physically; in addition, they never focus on the lessons, chat with each other most

the time, and make fun of the instructor and their classmates.

-Many students who belong to the lower class in Ifrane are drug dealers who commit different

violent behaviours toward each other for money, and they humiliate and scare their classmates

in school using knives or dogs.

-Some students fight each other using knives or just fists and bats for different reasons. For

instance, an innocent student of 15 years old got beaten by some of his classmates when he

was on his way home, the victim got several injuries and he was knocked down. This poor kid

is still at the hospital of Fez suffering from a coma.

-Many individuals that are15 to18 years old who were well raised, well educated, and good

students have become violent and hard to deal with.

-Some teachers have bad pedagogical approaches which consist on insulting some students,

discrimination between students for different reasons, ignoring some students, and beating

students brutally by kicking or fisting them.

-Some teachers don’t treat their students the same way, they are nice to some of them and

brutal and aggressive to the others.

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-Some parents don’t invest time with their children, and their loved ones spend most of the

day outside. They get back to their houses only to eat or to sleep.

Other types of violence in Ifrane:

-Some of the youth in Ifrane live under inhuman circumstances and suffer from extreme

poverty, neglect, bad health conditions, ignorance, child labour, and abuse.

-The one can notice a lot of frustration, anger, and hate between the youth in the streets.

-Many students leave school at an early age (from 10 to 15 years old) without getting an

elementary school degree.

-There are no job opportunities available in Ifrane, and most of the youth depend on renting

other people’s houses and rooms to the tourists in order to gain small amounts of money (10

to 30 MAD for each day of rent).

-Some parents depend on yelling, beating, and insulting in raising their children.

-Some of the youth whose ages of 16 to 25 years old get married and reproduce at an early

age without having a job, without having a high school diploma, or owning a business.

-The cold weather in the winter in Ifrane forces some families to freeze and suffer from

different chronic illnesses because they cannot afford for the expensive flammable wood.

-Some of the youth are getting arrested lately for robberies, drug dealing, and different violent

behaviours.

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 2) Discussion of the data:

After analyzing the data obtained based on the analysis on academic papers and the

observations made about the effects of violence on the youth in Ifrane, I deduced that most of

the children who belong to the lower class and can be considered from poor families in Ifrane

are suffering from the negative outcomes of violence on their mental and physical health.

Most of the youth that have been a victim of any kind of violence or abuse at an early age are

suffering from weakness of reasoning, lack of self-confidence, lack of balance between the

limbic mind which is responsible for instincts and the pre-frontal cortex which is responsible

for reasoning, and the several psychological conditions as depression, self-destruction, and

extreme shyness. In addition, the marginalization of the youth in Ifrane is an explanation to

the different violent behaviours that they may commit in order to win their lives either by

drug dealing or stealing. Violence in Ifrane isn’t just a behaviour that occurs as a result of

frustration, but its roots are poverty, ignorance, and discrimination.

Violence cannot produce anything but violence or worse results, structural violence

and cultural violence are the main causes of the direct violence that anyone can notice in

schools and streets of Ifrane. The extreme and multidimensional poverty and illiteracy are the

key factors that are behind the frustration that exists within the youth in Ifrane, and this

frustration and anger causes the several aggressions that can be either internal as committing

suicide and being addicted to different kinds of drugs or external as stealing, sexual assaulting

, and beating. The effects of violence can be visible as when we can notice the injuries and

bruises that can be the result of fights and conflicts, or invisible as when the one becomes

depressive and hates his life and the other individuals which drives him to commit several

behaviours as hurting other people or himself. In addition, the mental development of the

youth is affected negatively by violence as it has been shown in the analysis of the children

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that have been victims of violence since an early age and the others who weren’t. The ones

who had the chance to grow up in a healthy environment have been able to develop and

improve their reasoning skills and their self-confidence, and they have showed better results

in mental health tests compared to the broken children that have been abused or aggressed at

an early age.

The effects of structural violence are enormous and should be taken into serious

consideration because these consequences of aggression lead to the destruction of the youth

which is the base of any society. Ifrane youth suffers from marginalization as there are no

opportunities and no future for the majority; in addition, this can drive them to become

criminals and commit serious crimes and violent behaviors. We can deduce that triangle of

violence which exists in any city in Morocco is reproducing the same problems over and over,

and if there is no intention of interfering and reforming the economic and social sectors there

will be more violent behaviours in the daily lives of Moroccans.

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Conclusion:

Violence can be classified into three main types which are the structural violence, the

cultural violence, and the direct violence; in addition, these three keep reproducing aggression

as a sort of a loop of violence that never ends. The effects of violence on the youth’s

behaviours are obviously a question of violence itself because when the one is a victim of any

type of aggression, as a mirror he transmits the same violent behaviour toward others. In

addition, the impacts of violence on the youth development are clearly the following: the

destruction of the immune system, the lack of balance between instincts and reason, and the

lack of flexibility between the right part of the brain and the left part.

If any society wants to end violence, it should start with working on its children. The

educational system and parents should be teaching and educating children the values such as

mutual respect, humility, love, thankfulness, and sharing. In addition, the role of the school

and parents isn’t enough as the structural violence can only be ended by the state; therefore,

the state has to deal with the social and economic stratification in order to find solutions for

poverty, illiteracy, gender discrimination, and marginalization of the youth which is the main

cause of several types of violence. In addition, According to Diane (2013) in her book of the

origins of violence and strategies for change, the requisites for a non-violent society are

equality, knowledge, values, and security.

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