The Green March fifty years on... Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara consummated

Half a century after the Green March, which took place on the day when hundreds of thousands of Moroccans set out carrying The Quran and the national flag towards the Sahara, the anniversary was marked by what could be called the ‘fulfilment of the national dream’, with a clear and explicit decision by the UN recognising the Moroccan Sahara and considering the autonomy initiative to be the real and final solution to the fabricated conflict.

On 31 October 2025, the UN Security Council voted on Resolution 2797, which considered the Moroccan autonomy proposal to be ‘the realistic and only basis for future negotiations’, giving international legitimacy to a position that Morocco has been defending diplomatically, developmentally and sovereignly for decades.

This international achievement represents the practical translation of King Mohammed VI's vision of ‘Morocco on the rise,’ in which Morocco was placed on the path to strength, sovereignty, and sustainable development, highlighting that achieving international recognition of the Moroccan Sahara is not only a diplomatic gain but an affirmation of an emerging Moroccan model capable of imposing stability and openness to the future.

Between the moment of the Green March in 1975 and the moment of the UN resolution in 2025, a solid national thread extends. At first, the march was a symbolic event that embodied the unity of the popular will on the sovereign cause, and in the end, the UN resolution came to put the stamp of international legitimacy on that same will.

When King Hassan II called on Moroccans to march, he was not calling for a national review, but rather establishing a path of conscience, truth and dignity. Days ago, fifty years later, King Mohammed VI declared in his historic speech: ‘After fifty years of sacrifice, here we are beginning, with God's help and success, a new conquest in the process of consolidating the Moroccan desert, and the end of this artificial conflict within the framework of a consensual solution based on the autonomy initiative.’

This is how the picture is completed: the beginning was a march towards the land, and the end was a march towards recognition. The first march was by popular determination, and the second by diplomatic victory and royal insight.

King Mohammed VI said in his latest speech: ‘There is before 31 October 2025, and there is something after that.’ It is a phrase that marks the fact of a new era in Moroccan national consciousness and politics.

Today, the Sahara issue is no longer a matter for negotiation, but has become a sovereign reality enshrined in international law and recognised by the world. The ‘decision after’ is the moment of construction and empowerment in the southern provinces, the moment to establish development as another aspect of sovereignty, and the moment to shift the problem from the logic of defence to the logic of achievement.

Morocco won its case through diligent work that has accumulated over more than fifty years, by adhering to the choice of peace and rationality, openness to dialogue without neglecting the constants, and the development of the countryside that made the Sahara a Moroccan model of stability and prosperity.

This victory was not a coincidence or a passing political agreement, but rather the result of the logic of a state that maintained the clarity of its vision and the stability of its discourse and made the Sahara the endoscope through which it builds its partnerships. Since the introduction of the Autonomy Initiative in 2007, Morocco has worked on two complementary axes: international persuasion and internal construction. Today, the fruits of this effort have become a reality through a UN decision that has put an end to the mystery and enshrined sovereignty.

The 50th anniversary celebrated by Morocco is not a conclusion, but a new beginning. Because the march was not just an event in history, but a renewed spirit in the Moroccan consciousness. It has moved from the ‘march of land recovery’ to the ‘consolidation of processes of the Moroccan model’ in autonomy, development and modernity.

This is what King Mohammed VI expressed when he said: ‘The time has come for a unified Morocco, whose rights and historical borders no one will invade.’ In this sense, today's march has become a strategic project for the future, entitled ‘A Morocco from Tangier to Kuwaira’, and its content is to build a new generation that is aware that sovereignty is not only about land, but also about decision-making, identity and dignity.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Green March, Morocco is not celebrating a past anniversary, but a present victory. It moved from defending its right to establishing its legitimacy. Between 1975 and 2025, Morocco wrote a unique chapter in modern history: How can nations triumph with time, accumulated work and firm principles?

Therefore, Morocco today is moving from the stage of measurement to the stage of change, as emphasised by King Mohammed VI, who is the image of a ‘rising Morocco’ unified in its decision, identity and sovereignty.

Dr Amal Jbour, Jordanian writer and journalist