✍️ Qandyl Mohamed – Blogger, human rights activist, and independent Moroccan political critic
🔻 In Morocco, there is no issue that has been fortified with repression and forced sanctification like the issue of Western Sahara. It is not merely a political file or a regional dispute as it is portrayed, but rather an artificially constructed red line—a psychological and security wall carefully built to prevent Moroccans from thinking before speaking, and from speaking without permission. Here, you are not allowed to ask, to doubt, or even to whisper an opinion outside the official script. Either you repeat what is dictated to you, or you are labeled a traitor, an agent, a separatist, and an enemy of the nation.
The Makhzen has not been content with controlling the land; it has sought to occupy minds. It has turned the Western Sahara issue into a closed, sacred narrative, non-negotiable, as if it were a divine text that cannot be challenged. It is indoctrinated in schools, repeated in the media, and imposed by force in the public sphere, until the Moroccan citizen has become surrounded by a barrier of fear that prevents even the simplest question: what if the truth were different?
Anyone who dared to step outside this imposed consensus found themselves facing a merciless machinery of repression. It begins with campaigns of treason accusations and insults from the “herd” that has been conditioned into blind obedience, and does not stop at the limits of security and judicial prosecution. There are those who have been abducted, tortured, framed with fabricated charges, tried in miserable show trials, and those who have disappeared forever. In this specific issue, the system does not debate—it punishes. It does not convince—it intimidates.
The shocking paradox is that debate, in its essence, is not a crime, but a legitimate right. Every Moroccan citizen has the right to discuss the issue from a historical, legal, or even moral perspective. They have the right to question the roots of the conflict, the positions of international bodies, and the right of peoples to self-determination. Yet this right is systematically confiscated, because the truth, quite simply, poses a threat to the official narrative. And a system that fears debate is a system that recognizes the fragility and falseness of its own arguments.
Patriotism has been turned into a tool of blackmail. If you do not agree, you are a traitor. If you question, you are an agent. If you oppose, you are an enemy. Thus, patriotism is reduced to blind loyalty, and anyone who tries to think outside the mold is excluded. But the truth is that genuine patriotism does not mean silence—it means having the courage to confront lies, even when they are wrapped in flags and slogans.
As long as this “file” is funded from our pockets as Moroccans—from our labor, from our taxes that are forcibly extracted from the sustenance of our children—no one has the right to silence us or confiscate our questions. We are the ones who pay the bill for this conflict, and we are the ones who bear the cost of policies made behind closed doors without accountability, only to be asked afterward to applaud and bow.
By what right is silence imposed on us while we are the financiers? By what logic are billions of public funds spent on a project that the people are not even allowed to understand in detail? The clear truth that the Makhzen tries to obscure is that this system does not see Moroccans as citizens, but as subjects—a mere open treasury to finance its political whims and sustain its eroding legitimacy.
A system that monopolizes decision-making, monopolizes wealth, and even monopolizes “patriotism,” then demands that you be blind, deaf, and obedient. But this equation has expired. There is no guardianship over a people who pay the price, and no sanctity for decisions made in their name without their will. Those who pay have the right to question, and those who are questioned must be held accountable.
As one of the few Moroccans who have chosen to break this silence, I see in this issue nothing but a true test of conscience. I cannot oppose injustice in one place and remain silent about it in another. I cannot reject authoritarianism when it affects me, and justify it when it affects others. The stance is not selective—it is principled. From this perspective, defending the right of peoples to self-determination is not betrayal; it is the essence of justice.
As a republican, I do not recognize the legitimacy of a system built on repression and the silencing of voices. So how can I be asked to recognize its sovereignty over a land it seized by force? Sovereignty is not built through repression, nor imposed by tanks, nor justified by propaganda and lies. True sovereignty stems from the will of the people, not from top-down decisions imposed by force.
The Makhzen understands that opening this issue to free debate would mean the fall of the mask. That is why it insists on keeping it closed, besieged, and forbidden. But it forgets that ideas do not die, and that truth, no matter how deeply buried, finds its way to the surface. The harsher the repression, the greater the need to speak; the narrower the space, the wider the courage.
Opening the debate on Western Sahara is not an intellectual luxury, but a moral and political necessity. It is a first step toward liberating the Moroccan mind from guardianship, and toward building a collective awareness based on truth rather than fear. Yes, the price may be high—but silence has always been more costly.
Today, the question is no longer whether we should debate, but how long we will continue to remain silent.
