I would therefore term it a betrayal, and for me that is to say the colonizers betrayed Africans but also broader humanity -- their own humanity.
The British were themselves the product of multiple waves of conquest and colonization from the Paleolithic through the Iberian migrations, the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans up until 1066 and beyond.
It’s a constant of human behavior and historical development, so I’m not sure betrayal is really the right way to the think about it.
I would consider any conquest that involved the breaking of a centuries-long cordial relationship to be a betrayal, yes. What exactly is your point?
> Did the Seljuk Turks betray the Byzantines when they conquered Anatolia? Or had Romans previously betrayed the Seclucids, who had previously betrayed the various other people who occupied the area
> The British were themselves the product of multiple waves of conquest and colonization from the Paleolithic through the Iberian migrations, the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans up until 1066 and beyond.
No offence to you personally, but this particular brand of intellectual dishonesty - discussing the British empire as though it is far-flung history and not very recent indeed - is quite annoying. The conquests you bring up were a thousand years ago, two thousand in the case of the Roman-Seleucid war. On the other hand the expedition that subjugated the Benin Kingdom was in 1897, and it (as part of the country now called Nigeria) did not gain its independence from Britain until 1960. My father was born under colonial rule, for crying out loud, and I'm not even thirty yet. People don't make a habit of jumping into discussions of the German invasion of France in WW2 with anecdotes on Charlemagne's conquest of Bavaria - why on earth do they think it's okay to do when talking about the colonial era?
In fact, we're cognitively identical to the Medieval and Roman people. We have different ethical frameworks in the 21st century, but human nature doesn't change so fast. The British in the 19th Century were driven by the same underlying factors as the Romans 2000 years ago and Russia, China, and (arguably) the US today. We can certainly condemn it and trumpet our moral outrage, but that doesn't help us to understand or avoid it.
My motivation is not to minimize the abhorrent behavior of the British during that period, but to ensure that we don't make it out to be something uniquely evil that cannot be repeated in the future.
(And I do think it is important to see WWII in its historical context: the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, the rise of Prussian dominance, the Treaty of Versailles, etc. To do so doesn't minimize the responsibility of Germany in the 30s and 40s, but it does help us to understand the complexities behind the simplifying narratives of all sides.)
We are simply asking you to extend the same intellectual grace when discussing and teaching about colonialism, which by-the-by was going on at the same time as the world wars.
It is an unfortunate reality that the victims of colonialism have no more of a monopoly on the truth than the perpetrators.
And as to the point you made about betraying humanity: it's funny how people generally understand that the First and Third Reichs were out of line, understand the ethical reasons for the Allies opposing their takeover of Europe, but make excuses upon excuses upon excuses for European nations executing the very same imperialist agenda in Africa at the very same time.