Through a sleight of hand, the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 2797 is presented, officially in Algeria, simultaneously as a disaster and a triumph, a humiliation and an achievement.

In the same sentence, one laments the injustice and proclaims oneself a strategist; one denounces the maneuver while claiming it as a feat.

The people, perplexed, then ask themselves: Do we lose when we don't win, or do we win when we abstain?

The facts, nothing but the facts: as stated in the official UN text, presented by its penholder, the United States: The Council fully supports the efforts of the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy to facilitate and conduct negotiations based on the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco….

The resolution, adopted by a clear majority, is described as a turning point by several capitals. Eleven votes in favor, three abstentions.

Moroccan sovereignty is no longer a demand: it is a given. We no longer negotiate the if; we adjust the how.

Except for the one who remained on the platform, busy discussing the train's departure... when it was already just a dot on the horizon.

To embody this stubborn fidelity to illusion, Mr. Bendjama steps forward to the lectern, his brow grave, his voice restrained, his jaw furtively contracted in a nervous gesture.

He denounces an unbalanced text, ignoring, he says, the Polisario's theses, not sufficiently reflecting the right to self-determination, and potentially eroding dangerously one of the very pillars of the international order if such an approach were to be reproduced in other conflict zones.

And above all, he justifies the non-vote in Algiers, in the name of the same old supposed grand principles.

Self-determination invoked as a talisman, Woodrow Wilson cited as an oracle. As if abstention were a philosophical act, a state posture, a superior form of diplomatic courage.

An indignation so pure that it refuses to be tainted in a ballot.

But finally, if this text was so dangerous, if this diplomatic shift was so unacceptable, if this negotiating framework was so perilous, why not vote against it?

Certainly, from a protocol standpoint, abstaining may seem more elegant than voting against—a way of preserving channels while expressing disapproval. But politics is measured by the clarity of one's positions.

As if to further complicate matters, Ahmed Attaf takes the stage and recites his version of Resolution 2797: the one which, he says, endorses nothing. Yet, the text, in black and white, establishes the Moroccan autonomy plan as the basis for negotiations.

On set, facing a sympathetic camera, he struggles to tame the angles of reality.

With a wavering gaze and faltering confidence, he denies the scope of the resolution, relativizes its political significance, and reinvents the obvious to save the state orthodoxy.

He thus celebrates the extension of MINURSO, but remains silent about the strategic review planned in six months, which could redefine its mandate.

He speaks of self-determination as a rediscovered horizon, while denying that the text links it to the autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty, before acknowledging it, not as a now enshrined foundation, but by reducing it to four light pages and one paragraph.

So that's the argument. As if history were measured by page count, and legitimacy by paper weight.

Then comes the pirouette: We were this close to voting for it,' he concedes —had it not been for a paragraph deemed unwelcome on Moroccan sovereignty.

Two fingers.

A diplomacy on the verge of agreement, stopped by a comma deemed hostile.

History held… by the tip of the index finger.

A statement that contradicts his own denial, a few minutes earlier, of any reference to this sovereignty in the resolution.

And suddenly, memory falters: last year, this word was not there; and yet, already, Algiers had not voted.

The logic falters; the narrative becomes self-referential.

After five decades of openly betting on the Polisario Front, the diplomatic dam is cracking. In the newsrooms that have been lining up, everyone is scrambling. The official narrative must hold, whatever the cost.

Then this strange music was born, bitter and triumphant at the same time: lament and fanfare in the same breath.

Always the same in-between state.

The text is criticized as falling short of expectations, while it is claimed that it does not change anything.

We are outraged by a Western maneuver, a bias, American pressure — and we celebrate, as a victory, the maintenance of the status quo.

Bitterness seeps beneath the fervor. Isolation, disguised as principle, betrays a diplomacy on its last legs.

And yet, from the depths of the abyss, the triumphalist hymn still resounds. Algeria, it is said, has rebalanced the text through its vigilance, its noble abstention, its stoic presence on the bench of principles.

Simple questions remain: If principles are invoked, why distort them to justify inaction? Why forget them as soon as they touch upon national territory? And if neutrality is claimed, why this never-ending rage?

By constantly playing the offended party without openly taking part, by claiming to be neutral while doing the opposite, by invoking principle as an alibi, one ends up no longer speaking to anyone; except to one's own echo.

And while we exhaust ourselves in dissonances and verbal contortions, the gesture remains: the King's hand, outstretched, peaceful, clear, imbued with nobility, elegance and humility.

Because, above the tumult, the essential remains.

Where some stubbornly cling to division, we build bridges.

Where abstention is theorized, work is done, action is taken, and solutions are proposed.

Where the diplomacy of excess is in turmoil, that of restraint and vision unfolds.

A nation is not judged by its cries, but by what it builds.

By Mouna Hachim

November 8, 2025 at 11:00 AM