On November 4, 2025, Morocco announced the creation of a new national holiday, named “Unity Day” (عيد الوحدة), which will henceforth be celebrated every October 31. This day is intended to commemorate what Moroccan authorities describe as a “victory” in the Western Sahara issue.
Yet this initiative raises many questions. Upon closer examination, no tangible event—whether military, diplomatic, or historical—objectively justifies the choice of this date. No decisive agreement has been signed, no new international recognition has been obtained, and no concrete progress on the ground appears to have marked this day in any significant way.
It is precisely this absence of factual foundation that gives this decision both its meaning—and its controversy. By elevating October 31 to the status of a symbol of an unachieved triumph, the kingdom seems to wager on narrative over reality, on symbol over fact, on imagination over accomplishment. Thus, “Unity Day” appears less as the celebration of an achievement than as the affirmation of a national narrative, where memory is sometimes constructed in defiance of reality.
A Victory Without a Battle: The Art of Manufacturing Illusion
On this day, Morocco does not celebrate an accomplished fact, but an imagined triumph: a proclaimed sovereignty over a territory still under dispute, monitored by the UN Mission (MINURSO), and in the absence of any agreed political solution.
It is a symbolic, fabricated victory, meant to turn desire into reality and aspiration into political achievement. A strategy of “as if”, where the narrative pretends to reach the goal before it is actually achieved.
In political psychology, this is called substituting reality with a symbol: building authority on illusion to avoid confronting the truth.
From Defeat to Heroic Myth: A Deep-Rooted Tradition
This is not the first time the Moroccan regime has transformed defeat into legendary victory. The country’s modern history is marked by a tradition of falsifying meaning, turning military failure into national glory.
In October 1963, during the Sand War, the Moroccan army suffered a clear defeat against Algeria’s National Liberation Army, which defended its newly recovered borders. Yet this setback was presented to the Moroccan people as “a heroic victory over Algerian aggression”, turning loss into pride and defeat into a symbol of unity.
The same scenario unfolded in 1976 during the second battle of Amgala, when Moroccan forces endured heavy losses against Sahrawi fighters supported by Algerian units. Once again, official discourse recast the setback as “a military triumph”, adding another chapter to the saga of imagined victories designed to soothe a wounded national ego.
Thus, denial became a method of governance, and fiction an instrument of legitimacy.
1975: The Hague Opinion and the Birth of a Myth
In 1975, the International Court of Justice issued a clear legal opinion:
- It did not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
- It did not establish generalized ties of allegiance (bay‘a) between Moroccan sultans and Sahrawi tribes, except for one tribe among dozens — a proof deemed internal and not internationally valid.
- It confirmed the existence of links between Sahrawis and Mauritanians and concluded that Western Sahara was not terra nullius, but a land inhabited by a people entitled to self-determination.
Faced with this verdict, King Hassan II chose deception: he claimed the Court had recognized Moroccan sovereignty and launched the Green March, later turned into a national holiday, even though it marked the beginning of a bloody conflict and a financial abyss that still costs Morocco billions and countless lives every year.
Today: The Mirage of UN Resolution 2797
Half a century later, history repeats itself. Before the official publication of UN Security Council Resolution 2797, King Mohammed VI hastened to proclaim a diplomatic victory. Yet:
- The resolution does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty.
- It does not impose autonomy as the sole solution, leaving the door open to other proposals.
This recommendation, weaker than The Hague’s opinion, is nevertheless brandished as a triumph. Why? Because the regime continues to treat its citizens as mere subjects, expected to applaud without reading.
Collective Narcissism in Search of Lost Grandeur
This behavior reflects what political psychology calls compensatory collective narcissism: nations scarred by deep historical wounds — colonial or political — tend to create heroic myths to compensate for feelings of impotence or humiliation.
Morocco, haunted by the dream of a “Greater Morocco”, seeks to revive an imperial illusion by fabricating symbolic victories. When reality denies what it desires, the regime weaves narratives of triumph from threads of fiction and elevates them to the rank of truth.
Thus, the “Unity Day” is not an innocent celebration, but a psychological ritual to mend wounded pride and escape a diplomatic deadlock.
Illusion as a Tool of Power
Politically, these “manufactured victories” serve a clear purpose: to produce cohesion and loyalty. The proclaimed unity dissolves critical thinking in collective emotion, where ideas give way to euphoria, truth to sentiment, and reflection to applause.
Regimes lacking tangible achievements need myths to anesthetize collective consciousness. Myths unite and soothe, while truth divides and disturbs.
Thus, “Unity Day” becomes a mechanism to rebuild allegiance to the throne, divert attention from economic and social crises, and sanctify a fictitious sovereignty. Politics turns into dogma, and patriotism into liturgy.
The Cost of Denial: A State in Cognitive Dissonance
But this discourse comes at a price: it generates collective cognitive dissonance. While Rabat proclaims full sovereignty, Western Sahara remains an unresolved international dispute. This gap between triumphant rhetoric and resistant reality undermines the logic of the state itself.
The more exaggeration grows, the more lucidity fades. Politics ceases to be the management of interests and becomes the maintenance of a national mirage.
Conclusion: The Desert Cannot Hide the Truth Forever
“Unity Day” is not a celebration of unity, but an exaltation of illusion. It mirrors a national narcissism searching in fantasy for what reality has denied, and conceals fragile sovereignty behind a curtain of false pride.
From the Sand War to Amgala, from The Hague’s opinion to Resolution 2797, the Moroccan regime has never stopped building mirages to avoid facing the truth. But sand cannot hide facts forever: history, like the desert, preserves only what withstands the wind.
By Belgacem Merbah
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