“Imagine Waking Up One Morning and They Are Gone”

A Reflection on a Nation’s Longing for Renewal, Self-Determination, and a Future Beyond Endless Crisis

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Highlights

• A short, unsigned, and unassuming sentence, yet so heavy that it could summarize nearly half a century of a nation’s suffering: “Imagine waking up one morning and they are gone.” On the surface, it is only a slogan; in its depth, however, it may be the most condensed expression of a hope that has lived for years in the minds and hearts of millions of Iranians.
• No foreign power, no matter how often it speaks of freedom, democracy, or security, can replace the will of a nation to determine its own destiny. If Iran’s future is to be sustainable and legitimate, it must ultimately be shaped by the wishes and participation of the Iranian people.
• Perhaps one day this sentence will no longer be written on walls—not because it has been forgotten, but because there will no longer be any need to shout it. When Iranians can build their country’s future through the ballot box, accountable institutions, law, freedom, and civic participation, the walls will fall silent, because the voice of the nation will be heard from within society rather than from concrete and brick.

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This is not merely a slogan; it is the testament of a nation. Sometimes history writes itself not in the halls of politics, but on the forgotten walls of an ordinary alley.

A short sentence, unsigned and unassuming, yet so heavy that it could summarize nearly half a century of a nation’s suffering: “Imagine waking up one morning and they are gone.” On the surface, it is only a slogan; in its depth, however, it may be the most condensed expression of a hope that has lived for years in the minds and hearts of millions of Iranians.

A hope born not from hatred, but from exhaustion—exhaustion from endless crises, lost opportunities, and generations that, one after another, spent the best years of their lives waiting for a better tomorrow. Throughout all these years, the people of Iran have been spectators more often than participants.

Spectators to decisions made behind closed doors; wars they never started; sanctions whose price was paid by ordinary people; and negotiations conducted in Iran’s name, yet in which the voices of Iranians were heard far too little.

In recent months, as military tensions among the Islamic Republic, the United States, and Israel have increased, many Iranians have felt more strongly than before that their country has become the arena of a confrontation among powers, each pursuing its own goals and calculations.

Under such conditions, one question becomes more urgent than ever: Where do the people of Iran stand in this equation? Must they merely bear the cost of decisions in whose formation they played no role? From the perspective of many critics, the continuation of confrontational and exhausting policies carries the danger of pushing Iran further toward economic weakness, capital flight, the migration of elites, the erosion of infrastructure, and the decline of social capital.

For many, concern about the country’s future is no longer a theoretical debate. It has become a daily concern about the fate of a land they call home. On the other hand, there is also a reality that history has taught us repeatedly: global powers, regardless of their political slogans, make decisions based on their own national interests.

No foreign power, no matter how often it speaks of freedom, democracy, or security, can replace the will of a nation to determine its own destiny. If Iran’s future is to be sustainable and legitimate, it must ultimately be shaped by the wishes and participation of the Iranian people. Perhaps this is why that short sentence is not merely a protest slogan, but the testament of a generation that has lived for years between war and peace, sanctions and negotiations, hope and despair.

A generation that dreams of a day when its children live in a country whose leading news is not crisis, but progress; not threat, but opportunity; not migration, but return. The phrase “Imagine waking up one morning and they are gone” can be interpreted in different ways, but what stands out most clearly is the hope for the end of a cycle of crisis and the beginning of a new chapter for Iran—a chapter in which the people are not spectators, but the principal decision-makers in the future of their country.

Perhaps one day this sentence will no longer be written on walls—not because it has been forgotten, but because there will no longer be any need to shout it. The day Iranians can build their country’s future through the ballot box, accountable institutions, law, freedom, and civic participation, the walls will fall silent, because the voice of the nation will be heard from within society rather than from concrete and brick.

Perhaps that morning will be the very morning for which successive generations have waited—the morning when Iran, after years of struggle, once again becomes a home of hope.