In his book "The End of His­to­ry and the Last Man" (1992), po­lit­i­cal the­o­rist Fran­cis Fukuya­ma ar­gued that the col­lapse of the So­vi­et Union sig­naled the tri­umph of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy and its con­fir­ma­tion as the fi­nal form of hu­man gov­ern­ment - the end of His­to­ry. To­day's world de­fies that con­clu­sion. Chi­na is a com­mu­nist poli­ty with cap­i­tal­ist eco­nom­ics; In­dia's sup­posed lib­er­al democ­ra­cy has a dis­tinct­ly il­lib­er­al char­ac­ter; else­where we have Rus­sia, Be­larus, North Ko­rea, Vi­et Nam and El Sal­vador, the theoc­ra­cy in Iran, the fam­i­ly fief­doms of the Mid­dle East, the mil­i­tary jun­tas of Myan­mar and West Africa. And then there is Don­ald Trump's dystopi­an ver­sion of Amer­i­ca. But I love the phrase "the end of His­to­ry" and I bor­row it to use in a more pro­sa­ic man­ner. Across the globe, de­spite the in­ex­orable ad­vance of the in­for­ma­tion rev­o­lu­tion and ever evolv­ing dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, peo­ple know in­creas­ing­ly less about their own, nev­er mind hu­man, his­to­ry. His­tor­i­cal facts and gen­er­a­tional knowl­edge have been sup­plant­ed by the im­me­di­a­cy of so­cial me­dia pseu­do-ex­per­tise, ran­dom opin­ion and "al­ter­na­tive facts". And dai­ly, every­where, his­to­ry is be­ing re­vised and per­vert­ed by pow­er­ful in­ter­ests in favour of their nar­row, an­ti-Truth agen­das and to en­sure the peo­ples lose their ground­ings. We are at the end of His­to­ry.

My last ar­ti­cle fo­cused on the in­ter­sec­tion of Pan-African­ism and African foot­ball, and the key role of the for­mer in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of African Foot­ball (CAF) and the Africa Cup of Na­tions (AF­CON).This was not mere his­to­ry. It res­onates to­day. AF­CON Mo­roc­co 2025 was be­ing played swim­ming­ly when, af­ter the Round of 16 match be­tween De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go (DRC) and Al­ge­ria, we saw the void at the end of his­to­ry.

Michel Nku­ka Mbo­ladin­ga, a DRC fan now wide­ly known as “Lu­mum­ba Vea,” had emerged as an AF­CON 2025 tour­na­ment icon by trans­form­ing him­self at DRC match­es in­to a liv­ing stat­ue of Patrice Lu­mum­ba, the coun­try’s as­sas­si­nat­ed in­de­pen­dence hero. His team fell 1:0 to Al­ge­ria and Al­ge­ria for­ward Mo­hamed Amoura mocked DRC's su­per­fan af­ter the match.

Patrice Lu­mum­ba (1925-1961) was an African na­tion­al­ist leader and first Prime Min­is­ter (June–Sep­tem­ber 1960) of DRC (colo­nial Bel­gian Con­go). Lu­mum­ba’s po­lit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, of­ten termed "African So­cial­ism," was an eclec­tic mix of En­light­en­ment ideals and Marx­ist-Lenin­ist thought adapt­ed to the African con­text. He ar­gued that pre-colo­nial African so­ci­eties were in­her­ent­ly egal­i­tar­i­an and at­tempt­ed to use this his­tor­i­cal mod­el as the foun­da­tion for mod­ern so­cial jus­tice and na­tion­al eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence. With ide­al­is­tic fer­vour he de­clared, "We shall show the world what the Black man can do when work­ing in lib­er­ty.” This cat­a­pult­ed him in­to di­rect con­flict with the West­ern pow­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly USA and Bel­gium, which pro­mot­ed his over­throw and as­sas­si­na­tion by Mobu­tu Sese Seko, who would be­come one of Africa's most bru­tal dic­ta­tors. To­day, Lu­mum­ba is re­gard­ed as a mar­tyr of Pan-African­ism for his com­mit­ment to na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty and his re­fusal to ac­cept a "for­mal" in­de­pen­dence that main­tained colo­nial struc­tures of con­trol.

BY ALL MEANS NEC­ES­SARY

"In­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball is the con­tin­u­a­tion of war by oth­er means." George Or­well in "The Sport­ing Spir­it" (1945).

Af­ter its in­tro­duc­tion in­to the con­ti­nent by Eu­ro­pean ex­pa­tri­ates in the 1860s, by the ear­ly 1930s foot­ball was the sport of the African "sans cu­lottes", the great mass­es chaf­ing un­der colo­nial rule, and na­tion­al­ists start­ed us­ing foot­ball to mo­bilise peo­ple to chal­lenge it. The ban­ning of pub­lic gath­er­ings by colo­nial ad­min­is­tra­tions left foot­ball sta­dia as a main set­ting where na­tion­al­ists could ad­dress large crowds with­out fear of in­car­cer­a­tion.

In the 1960s, foot­ball was a uni­fy­ing ve­hi­cle that helped ad­vance a re­gion­al agen­da in the new world or­der that fol­lowed the wave of African na­tions de­clar­ing in­de­pen­dence. They al­so used their new­ly mint­ed mem­ber­ship in FI­FA to wage war on the es­tab­lished or­der of the in­ter­na­tion­al game. Two cam­paigns stand out - the strug­gle against South African apartheid and the fight for more World Cup places,

FI­FA sus­pend­ed South Africa in 1961 due to the coun­try's apartheid poli­cies. The sus­pen­sion was lift­ed briefly in 1963 but re­in­stat­ed due to pres­sure from African as­so­ci­a­tions, last­ing un­til South Africa's re­turn to in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball in 1992 af­ter the fall of apartheid. Mean­time, al­most thir­ty coun­tries across Africa and Asia were forced to com­pete for on­ly one of the six­teen slots at the Eng­land 1966 World Cup, spark­ing great dis­con­tent. Ghana Pres­i­dent Kwame Nkrumah en­cour­aged the Ghana Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion to lead a fif­teen-na­tion African boy­cott. North Ko­rea took the one place but the boy­cott brought African foot­ball to the fore, laid the foun­da­tion for Sub-Sa­ha­ran African lead­er­ship and forced FI­FA to guar­an­tee one spot for Africa (Mex­i­co 1970).

AL­GER­IAN NA­TION­AL LIB­ER­A­TION FRONT

"With the pass­ing of time, I can say that none among us have re­grets...We were mil­i­tants, we were rev­o­lu­tion­ists. I fought for in­de­pen­dence...They were beau­ti­ful years." Mo­hamed Maouche, FLN team mem­ber.

In North Africa, the na­tion­al lib­er­a­tion strug­gle that most ex­plic­it­ly used foot­ball un­fold­ed in Al­ge­ria, where the Na­tion­al Lib­er­a­tion Front (FLN) waged a bit­ter an­ti-colo­nial war for in­de­pen­dence (1954-1962). Al­ge­ria was France's most prized African pos­ses­sion. The French did not just rule it, they made it an Over­seas De­part­ment in 1830 and by 1962 one and a half mil­lion of them lived there. They fought like demons to keep it and the Al­ge­ri­ans fought with in­de­fati­ga­ble courage to evict them. Be­tween three hun­dred and fifty thou­sand and one mil­lion Al­ge­ri­ans are es­ti­mat­ed to have died in the war, and more than two mil­lion were made refugees or forcibly re­lo­cat­ed in­to gov­ern­ment con­cen­tra­tion camps.

In April 1958 thir­ty-one Al­ger­ian foot­ballers de­part­ed France in protest over its war against Al­ger­ian in­de­pen­dence. These men played for top clubs in France, in­clud­ing cham­pi­ons AS Saint-Eti­enne. Some of them were vi­tal to the French na­tion­al team that was due to play in the Swe­den 1958 World Cup fi­nals two months lat­er. The FLN formed a na­tion­al team with them. They toured North Africa, East­ern Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East, and East Asia be­tween 1958 and 1962, play­ing nine­ty-two match­es and win­ning six­ty-five vic­to­ries. Dur­ing the years of the Al­ger­ian rev­o­lu­tion, the team was a sym­bol of their an­ti-colo­nial re­sis­tance and in­ter­na­tion­alised their strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence.

THE END OF HIS­TO­RY

"A peo­ple with­out the knowl­edge of their past his­to­ry, ori­gin and cul­ture is like a tree with­out roots." Mar­cus Gar­vey.

The tragedy of an Al­ger­ian foot­ball play­er mock­ing a DRC fan who im­per­son­ates Patrice Lu­mum­ba is piti­ful. It de­nies the shared com­mon­al­i­ties of their an­ti-colo­nial his­to­ry. So­cial me­dia rose in con­dem­na­tion of the Al­ger­ian. Many North Africans iden­ti­fy more as Arab than as African, in­flu­enced by cul­tur­al, lin­guis­tic, and his­tor­i­cal ties to the Mid­dle East, but the crit­i­cism cut across that fault line. Egypt­ian jour­nal­ist Es­lam Magdy ad­dressed the play­er on X say­ing, "The Al­ger­ian strug­gle's re­la­tion­ship with the Con­golese strug­gle is deeply in­ter­twined and in­cred­i­bly strong. Patrice Lu­mum­ba strong­ly sup­port­ed Al­ger­ian in­de­pen­dence from France to the ut­most ex­tent. The sup­port­er com­mem­o­rates the mem­o­ry of a leader who did every­thing he could for his coun­try; he com­mem­o­rates a mem­o­ry that rep­re­sents the very same thing you lived through against France - and per­haps worse - and most im­por­tant­ly, he didn't harm any­one to be­come fod­der for mock­ery in the first place. Al­ge­ria's ties with the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go on the is­sues of re­sis­tance and in­de­pen­dence are in­cred­i­bly strong, ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter Lu­mum­ba's as­sas­si­na­tion." The Al­ger­ian play­er con­trite­ly plead­ed ig­no­rance and his as­so­ci­a­tion apol­o­gized pro­fuse­ly.

Foot­ball and his­to­ry have been my twin ob­ses­sions since child­hood. The for­mer al­lowed me to earn a Mas­ter's de­gree in the lat­ter at Howard Uni­ver­si­ty. His­to­ry is ar­guably the old­est so­cial sci­ence. It should be stud­ied by all. When Eu­ro­peans at­tack the black pop­u­la­tion of their con­ti­nent they for­get the Berlin Con­fer­ence (1884-1885), at which they di­vid­ed African lands among them­selves but which brought mil­lions of Africans to theirs. And where is his­to­ry lo­cat­ed with­in our na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum? How do we se­cure a sense of his­tor­i­cal con­text, na­tion­al con­ti­nu­ity and en­light­ened cit­i­zen­ship in the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness of our peo­ple if we do not re­quire the teach­ing of his­to­ry to our chil­dren? His­to­ry is not manda­to­ry in our schools. Con­ceiv­ably, stu­dents could com­plete their en­tire aca­d­e­m­ic ca­reer with­out ever be­ing for­mal­ly in­tro­duced to the process of their past. How do they learn of Stoke­ly Carmichael (Kwame Ture, 1941-1998), a Bel­mont boy, Rudranath Capildeo (1920-1970) from Ch­agua­nas, or Eu­gene Chen (1878-1945) of San Fer­nan­do? We are at the end of His­to­ry. So I quote Mar­cus Gar­vey but the quote ap­plies to all peo­ples of the world, not on­ly Africans and the Di­as­po­ra. And it sure­ly ap­plies to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, of all races and none.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.