Nothing in History Was Inevitable

History doesn’t move on its own; it changes when people decide it must.

One of my favourite historians, David McCullough, often said that nothing that happened in history was inevitable. This is a very interesting idea—one that is rarely thought about.

We who live in the present often live after the events have passed. We tend to impose our present reality on the past, assuming that this present future was always bound to happen. Because it has already occurred, we imagine there was no alternative.

Think about the great events of history. It was not inevitable that the Allies would win the Second World War; the Axis Powers could very well have won it. It was not inevitable that Deng Xiaoping would open China to the world and set it on the path to prosperity; it was entirely possible that China could have remained poor, like much of the rest of the developing world. It was not inevitable that the United Nations would become a functioning international body; it could easily have failed, just as the League of Nations did before it.

And it was certainly not inevitable that 1960 would become the Year of Independence for African nations. In 1955, a Belgian professor named A. A. J. Van Bilsen published a paper proposing a “Thirty-Year Plan for the Political Emancipation of Belgian Africa,” suggesting that the Congo might be ready for independence only by the 1980s. In Ghana, British officials were still projecting that colonial rule could last another 40 to 50 years, with self-government perhaps coming around the early 2000s. And that was for territories where the conversation had even begun. For many others, there was no conversation at all. Colonialism was treated as permanent, almost eternal.

Of course, we now know that history didn’t happen that way.

In 1957, Ghana became the first African country to gain independence. Congo followed in 1960, and several more African countries soon joined. Between 1957 and 1965, 32 African nations gained independence. The year 1960 is now remembered as The Year of Independence.

But friends, the Year of Independence was not inevitable. It became so because Africans refused to continue as colonial subjects. It became so because Kwame Nkrumah insisted that Ghana must be free. It became so because Patrice Lumumba insisted that Congo must gain independence now. It became so because leaders in Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and across the continent demanded their freedom and refused to wait.

Nothing is inevitable.
Nothing is inevitable.

So, what does this have to do with us? Everything.

If you want something to change, get up and do something. If you don’t like the way things are, rise and start working to make them different. If you want to see a better world, begin creating it. Nothing is inevitable. It will not happen without you.

I wish you good luck, my friend.