Violence: an urgent problem

Violence: an urgent problem

We hear everywhere that our society is in crisis. They say people lack values. They say there’s no more love, no more hope, no more tolerance, and that nowadays’ most important social features are selfishness and greed. And this is supposedly reflected by the increasing amount of violent episodes all over the world, especially among the new generation.
In Argentina, the situation is getting out of hand. Most public and private schools have witnessed some kind of violence: students attack students, students attack teachers, teachers attack students, students’ mothers attack teachers, teachers attack teachers… We find out about a new case every time we open a newspaper. It has even got to the point where a Psychology student gun-threatened another one just because the other had sat at her place.
In Europe and in the USA the situation is no better. Around 20% of European students report having been bullied.
When we look for the causes, most Argentineans believe this extreme violence is due to the poverty and low accessibility to education existing in our country. According to them, violence would be a “third world disease”. This can be a minor factor, but apparently not the main one. How can we explain then what happens in Europe and the USA, where there is more economical stability and equality of educational opportunities? Violence is certainly present in all socio-economical classes.
Some experts find an answer to that question in the fact that nowadays parents spend most of their time at work, not with their children. As watching their parents is the best example they can get, the only example left to follow is what they see on TV and other media. However, TV doesn’t pretend to educate or teach any kind of values, b but to get more audience all the time. And, let’s face it, violence is one of the themes that sells the most.
Their behavior is also influenced by their friends’ attitudes. The problem is most of their friends are in the same absent-parents situation, which is the same as saying that they also have no one to tell them what is good and what is bad; no one to tell them how to behave and how not to.
The question is: what will those kids, with no real model to follow, become? ‘We are the future, right? Then if we’re violent, we’ll be living in an even more violent world when we grow up. A world closer to chaos than to civilization’, says 17-year-old Maria. Her friend Virginia also states her opinion: ‘I think adults just enjoy over-simplifying and saying things like “modern youth is lost”. Maybe today’s situation is better than it was forty years ago, but they will insist on saying we’re lost. It’s nonsense.
Even if, as I explained, they could be blamed for youth violence at a certain level, adults are the ones who complain the most about the situation. ‘Yes, I am afraid. I don’t let my children go out after a certain hour, because it’s son dangerous. We know about a lot of cases where innocent people got attacked for no reason at all. So, yes, I’m scared.’ says 39-year-old Stella.
What are we going to do about youth violence? Sending children to reformatories has proved to be useless. The key must then be prevention through a solid educational program combined with social assistance in the poorer areas. In that way we will be helping the youth develop in a less violent and more secure environment that supports them. Unfortunately, implementing this important prevention program turns out to be extremely expensive and complicated, and, even if it is implemented, it would only help the violence rate to go down in a very slow way. It’s a long-term program.
We come back then to the parents’ issue. Family is responsible for kids’ attitudes. But, can somebody force parents to be good parents? Or is there a way to teach them? The XXIst century has just started: let’s do our best so that it doesn’t end with this problem still unsolved, because violence affects us all.

Author: Valentina Pastore