Our lessons today circled around the topics of religion, politics, and the role of women. These are subjects that, even though I have only been in the country for a short time, I have been noticing their dynamics in the public landscape.

One notable thing that I have seen in Morocco is the large number of mosques. It was no surprise that religion plays a huge role in Morocco, but I was surprised that the various mosques largely had tall pillar structures. I found out that mosques do not need to have these pillars and there is no format for how they should be built, the towers are purely decorative. Most mosques around the world have circular towers but Morocco is different because they mostly have square towers. The reason behind this is that they tried to mirror the appearance of Mecca in Saudi Arabia since it is a cube. It’s also interesting because when we first got to Casablanca, I saw a ton of these mosques, and I figured that it was a requirement to have the towers. When I arrived in Rabat I noticed I saw less of the towers, and especially in the Medina, most of the mosques don’t have towers. I wouldn’t have known that the buildings I was passing were mosques if the front door was not open.

I learned that religion is best for the country when it is liberal. For example, in the early 2000’s certain mosques in Morocco would shut down between the first and second call to prayer to teach people to read. This was an effort by, at the time, the new King Mohhamad IV to increase literacy rates in the country. These opportunities were mostly utilized by the older woman in the country since they had such a desire to be able to read since most of them had never had opportunities such as this one. But the younger generation of woman in Morocco has increasingly high literacy rates. I have seen this by walking the streets of the Medina and seeing more girls walking to school than boys.

This leads into women’s role in politics since up until this point they had limited opportunity for education and advocating for their rights. Until 2004 women were considered minors under the law and so introducing political change was very difficult. Also, it is very difficult to change the minds of more traditional people making this a challenge on the social and political level. Therefore, the most useful way the country is working towards equality is through associations. These groups do field work which is very effective in changing the minds of the people who live more traditionally. Changing the minds of people at a social level will in time lead to change on the political level. I’ve seen the difficulty to change the minds of the older generation firsthand by comparing them to the younger generation. The older women in Morocco dress very traditionally and conservatively with lots of hijabs and covering most of their skin. The younger women dress less modestly and have a very western style.

These topics changed the way I look at Morocco because I started noticing how much history and tradition still affect modern life. Before coming here, I thought social and political topics would feel very distant from my everyday life, but they are visible everywhere from the way people dress to the role religion plays in communities. It also made me realize how quickly certain aspects of culture can change between generations while older traditions still remain relevant.