“Since our Sahara could not come to us, we had to go to it,” was the comment of King Hassan II, as reported in his book “The Challenge” published in 1976, on his call to organize the largest peaceful march in history, called the Green March, that enabled the liberation of the southern territories of the Kingdom.
The march operation to recover the southern provinces was inspired by the verse of the Surah Al Fath [(re)conquest], and green symbolizes Islam. The participants were equipped with Qurans, Moroccan flags, and banners of the King in hand, united under his call to uphold Morocco’s territorial integrity. The marchers personified Morocco’s unrelenting commitment to liberating the Sahara.
On November 5, King Hassan II made a royal speech announcing the launch of the Green March, saying: “Tomorrow, God willing, you will pierce the border. Tomorrow, God willing, the Green March will be launched. Tomorrow, God willing, you will step on the part of your territory, touch the sand of your Sahara, and embraces the soil of your beloved homeland… There is only one thing left for us to do, dear people, and that is to undertake a peaceful march from the North, the East, the West, to the South. It is up to us to act as one man to reach the Sahara in an orderly manner“.
350,000 was the number of persons (men and women) that the King attributed to the organization of the epic. That number represented the figure of the Moroccan vitality (number of births per year in the past); the choice of the marchers was by a quota in the provinces, according to the size and loyalty of the tribe, the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) with the help of the governors, have supervised the device with the coordination of 170 doctors and paramedics. Twelve days of daily trains transported the volunteers into Marrakech, 7813 trucks from Marrakech to Agadir, and vice versa, and others from Tantan bivouacs and Tarfaya. The day after it, 350,000 people met in Tarfaya and marched to peacefully liberate their Sahara from the yoke of the Spanish colonizer. This liberating march took the whole world by surprise; never before had people been able to liberate their territory so peacefully, proving the exceptionality of a thousand-year-old Nation.
After three days, the Green March has achieved its objectives. The marchers covered more than 20 km crossing the border post of Tah before being called back by the King, who asked them to return, considering that the march had reached its end. Thus, the Moroccans have accomplished one of the most remarkable feats in the history of Morocco, which the late Hassan II praised in his speech on November 9. “They have just written one of the most glorious pages of our history, a page that will be cited as an example to future generations in terms of discipline, obedience, maturity, endurance, and patriotism,” it is how the Sovereign praised the participants. The Sahara returned to the mother country without a drop of blood.
Distinguished by a 1200-year history, Morocco is not the result of colonial tracing, as is the case for most colonized countries. The Sahara had always been a Moroccan land before the arrival of the Spaniards, as evidenced by the opinion of the Court of The Hague, issued at the request of Morocco, which clearly stated that the Sahara was never terra nullius, recognizing the bonds of allegiance linking the tribes of the Sahara and the sultans of Morocco. This link was corroborated by legal evidence of Muslim law proving the loyalty and obedience of the Saharan tribes to the central power of the Sultan. The umbilical cord between the Alawite dynasty and the Saharan tribes can no longer be refuted. In short, Morocco is legitimate in its Sahara. After that, nothing prevented the Moroccan people from meeting their brothers in the South.
Organizing the Green March was not that difficult for the King, as his majesty said in an interview with the French journalist Eric Laurent: “Sending Moroccans to the Green March was not the most difficult thing, how they would get back to their cities when they were asked to, systematically and in an organized way, believing that the triumph was in their side, was more challenging.”
It was not hard for the King to convince Moroccan citizens to go to the Sahara. The close relationship between the throne and the people and the love and respect they enjoy among the people rose to the level of great national duty, and no other leader would have been able to gather these numbers of volunteers quickly and in a record time, except having a high status in the hearts of his people.
From that year, Moroccans celebrated the Green March anniversary on the same date, the largest, longest, and most peaceful march anywhere in the world. It is a national day in Morocco and will always be.
The Green March remains the pride of all Moroccans and a lesson to the world in promoting peace. It remains a symbol of determination, courage, and sacrifice for the sake of the nation, Morocco, from Tangier to Elgouira.