The “Free Fire” Generation: When Manipulators Toy with the Minds of Politically Engaged Teens
By Najiba Jalal
Morocco has never witnessed a generation filled with such empty enthusiasm and adolescent boldness. This generation raises slogans as it raises its virtual weapons in the game Free Fire, firing verbal shots in every direction without distinguishing friend from foe, shouting for revolution while failing to differentiate between authority and responsibility, freedom and chaos.
This is the “ZID” generation that sought to engage in protest without vision or compass. It surged into the digital streets with an angry and contradictory discourse, oscillating between rejecting the state and demanding its services, attacking institutions yet seeking refuge in them. This generation does not realize it is calling for freedom while willingly placing itself under the guardianship of those who mislead it every morning and evening.
The manipulators, who have mastered the art of brainwashing, have returned today dressed in new clothes. They feed this generation the same delusion they marketed in previous stages, only changing the medium: from party pamphlets to live broadcasts, from revolutionary slogans to memes and hashtags. They speak of enlightenment while living in the dark shadows of lies, and they call for dignity while being the very ones who sell it in foreign markets.
They have found their target in the “Free Fire Generation”: youth thirsty for heroism, without experience or memory, easily led by a discourse that fuels anger and numbs the mind. They turn them into virtual soldiers executing an agenda of conflict with the homeland, believing they are fixing the reality.
For this generation, politics is no longer a project or a commitment, but rather a match governed by ego and emotion, where points are scored by the number of views, not by the depth of ideas. Behind the screens, the manipulators appear with their fabricated smiles, distributing lessons on “awareness,” while they remain the most ignorant of its limits.
The most dangerous aspect of our current reality is this alliance between ignorance and enthusiasm, between youth searching for meaning and manipulators who excel in selling phony meanings. Amidst this chaos, struggle has turned into entertainment, politics into mere verbal luxury, and the homeland into a topic of discussion rather than a matter of belonging.
The “Free Fire Generation” does not need more incitement; it needs someone to awaken it from its slumber. It requires those who can teach it that revolution is not a game and that the homeland is not a testing ground for the delusions of manipulators. For between the real world and the virtual world lies a true homeland that is built through action, not shouting, and through awareness, not incitement.
