Western Sahara and the Arab Spring

Abstract

On 10 October 2010, a protest camp in the Sahrawi desert area of Gdeim Izik was established. Some academics and political analysts saw in the Sahrawi protest a preface to the Arab Spring that broke out a few months later in various North African and Middle Eastern countries. The hypothesis in this chapter is that the Gdeim Izik and subsequent protests in Western Sahara cannot be placed within the social movements and the “fifth wave of political change” that have shaken the Middle East and North Africa. To prove this, the chapter identifies the particular characteristics of the Sahrawi protest; the absence of significant changes in the organization, representation and means of political participation in Western Sahara since the Gdeim Izik protest; the lack of consequences for the provinces of Western Sahara in the political reform process carried out by Morocco in response to the 20 February (20-F) social movement; and the absence of any improvements in the process of resolving the sovereignty conflict over Western Sahara.