>Both are valid views and both can be debated with nuance
No.
When it comes to Colonialism (and ideas of Superior/Inferior races) there is no two ways about it; it is untenable and unacceptable.
No.
When it comes to Colonialism (and ideas of Superior/Inferior races) there is no two ways about it; it is untenable and unacceptable.
From a WSJ article (https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-hong-kongers-want-to-be-br...):
"On Sunday, hundreds of people gathered outside the British consulate in Hong Kong for a rally urging London to take immediate action to protect British nationals in the city and grant them full citizenship.
“We’re too British to be Chinese,” said Eric Cheung, a 25-year-old Hong Kong resident at the rally who is a British National (Overseas), or BNO. “We share the same ideology with the U.K. We support democracy, we support freedom, we support the rule of law and of course we support the U.K. government,” he said.
“ Boris Johnson, fight for us,” he added, appealing to the British prime minister.
Colonialism ruined whole countries leaving them poor, rewrote cultural narratives, uprooted entire social structures and in a word, destroyed peoples histories and a sense of their own independent identity. In the bloody aftermath some flourished and some did not; but this cannot be used as an example of the "superiority" of certain forms of government when the existing forms had been destroyed.
A good starting point on further research is the book; Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Acemoglu and Robinson (be sure to read the Critical Reviews section) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail
The following two videos though dealing specifically with India under British Colonialism are equally valid as to what had happened to other countries under the British Empire;
1) W.r.t. what British Colonialism did to India, see Dr. Shashi Tharoor's longer speech Looking Back at the British Raj in India - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB5ykS-_-CI
2) Shorter version of above at Britain Does Owe Reparations[to India] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4
Not viewing other colonialism before (like the one of the roman empire) or the chinese/osmanic empire is western centrism in disguise.
That is a "belief" without any basis in facts and therefore untenable.
The point is that when it comes to sovereignty, there can only be self-determination based on whatever accepted criteria by the people themselves.
Relevant: The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de La Boétie - https://mises.org/library/politics-obedience-discourse-volun...