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The British Empire (& Europeans, Arabs etc.) colonised many countries but the colonial experience, advertised as a "westernizing the backward people for their own good" masked the oppression, bloodshed, racism & exploitation of people & resources on a large scale.
But I wonder how differently would things/events need to be carried out where the intent & outcomes of "colonialism" would have been positive from start to finish for all countries involved?
This question kind of reminds me of how decades ago I used to read my papers' weekly Miss Manners column. It seemed like once a month or so someone would write in asking "What is the polite way to X", where X is something inherently rude.
She usually had an impressively gentle way of informing them that the only polite path is to not X at all. Meanwhile I'm mentally calling them all kinds of nasty names, which I suppose is why she's Miss Manners, and I'm not. But dammit people, you gotta learn that some things are just inherently wrong, and there's no "right way" to do something wrong. You can't just big brain your way around morals.
The reason this reminds me of that of course, is that colonialism, as normally defined, cannot happen without taking someone else's stuff. Their land, their resources, their freedom, their lives sometimes. You've gotta take at least some of that, or its not colonialism.
There is no "benevolent" way to take someone's stuff from them. It can't be done.
