Thanks for a more nuanced response Aza.

I think you touch upon what is at the heart of my complaint. Your American and UK failed to live up to your expectations. The fact that America is an old well developed and wealthy democracy is a reason why I frequently direct criticism against the US.

It is not because I think Americans are much worse than other people. It is simply because I expect a lot more from them than say Saudi Arabians or say Russians.

And the West as a whole being democratic and well developed, naturally incurs more expectations. With a better educated and enlightened population I accept that more would be expected of us than say people in a poor, and poorly educated country.

My negative reaction is when it is being implied that all nations with white people in them are somehow more morally corrupt than all other people in absolute terms. Not just for a short time frame, but for the last 500 years or so. That is quite an accusation. I honestly don't mind so much criticism of European colonial past. But I prefer a focus on European nations rather than the skin color of the people. By focusing on skin color, one starts to imply that rather than European powers ending up doing that they did was a product of particular historical developments, we end up concluding: European nations did bad things because having white skin makes you morally corrupt.

Europe has certainly done its part in spreading racism in the past, but we should work against those ideas no amplify them or encourage them.

I accept that countries like Saudi Arabia, China etc needs more time to develop. I don't hold them to the same standards as us in the West. That isn't about race, but simply because evolving any society takes time. Western society took a long time to develop ideals around democracy, free speech and human rights. We cannot expect countries with much less time to develop these notions will get there in record time.

However that does not imply that it is fair to suggest Europeans are worse people than everybody else. I personally think Saudi Arabia is horrible in terms of its values. Essentially a gender apartheid regime with medieval forms of punishment. Yet I would never suggest this is down to "brown people" being bad. The problem is specific to the history and development of Saudi Arabia not due to the DNA of its people.

To remark a bit on European colonization and conquest. While resources poverty may have played a role, you also have to consider the unique geography of Europe. It is something I write extensively about.

https://erik-engheim.medium.com/geography-and-economics-89ebdcfbce0

https://erik-engheim.medium.com/how-fjords-made-norway-rich-bec10a10ac79

Europe as coastline, mountains ranges, rivers and climate which is exceptionally good at encouraging development of ocean and sea travel. Europe was quite unique in the world in developing early many aspects of early free market/capitalism system. Trade was a private enterprise much earlier in Europe than say China were it was organzid much more by the state.

Because of superior ocean traveling technology and development of trade oriented economies and societies, European nations early ventured abroad to buy and sell. Colonization happened almost a bit by accident from there on.

Back in those days trade posts were often not very secure. Merchants had to setup forts, but would still get attacked. Increasingly European powers began conquering territory around their trade posts to safeguard their trade. With superior weapons and tactics Europeans quickly began to learn that they could win these battles easily, and this of course attracted greedy people eqager to begin real conquest. Whether white, brown or black, few men have passed on the opportunity to conquer when it presented itself.

Others civilizations simply did not have the opportunity as large fleets of ships which could travel far had not established themselves to the same degree. And other civilizations were united into much large power structures like the Indians and Chinese. Europe was a patchwork of states which meant fierce competition. European nations to a large degree conquered and grabbed land to eclude other European powers. China and India would not have had that sort of mindset as a Chinese merchant would not have to deal with competition from a dozen other Chinese states. There was just ONE Chinese state.

One has to keep this in mind when comparing European conquest and that of others. Ottomans and others conquered neighbouring countries not distant ones. European did not make a big difference between people either for geographically close countries.

And anyway Ottomans have a rather mixed history regarding their treatement of non-muslism. Ottomans had whole slave armies. They raided Europe and enslaved people. Europeans did not enslave middle eastern people.

Yes, Europeans enslaved Africans, but so did Arabs and they had done it for a longer and in a more brutal fashion. Europeans did not cut off the genitials of African slaves. So I am not sure how much you can talk about "respecting humanity."

What I read about Mughals make their rule sound far worse than British rule. I suppose one has to keep in mind that British people and Indians looking very different would make it easier for British to keep a cleaner separation between themselves and Indians e.g.

Also European rulers and elites faced dilemmas older emperires such as the Mughal, Persian, Chinese etc did not face: They were slowly developing into democracies with free speech, notions of individual freedom etc.

For somebody wishing to retain control and rule over colonies far away this presented a dilemma. How can you rationalize colonial rule with all these enlightened ideas? Mughals never faced this dilamma. The powerful in Europe "solved" this problem by inventing scientific racism.

In fact it was part of an older European problem. Ever since Christianity took ever slavery had been forbidden in Europe. Islam did not have this "probem." Europeans on conquest abroad could thus in principle not enslave people.

Thus ironically by having more enlightened ideas developling in Europe it created a stronger push to separate Europeans from others as to excuse enslavement and oppression which was increasinly becoming hard to justify in Europe itself.

In short, I don't think you can claim say that the Mughals were more humane for simply being equally tyrannical to everyone. I guess by that token Stalin was a humanist, because he was genuinely bad to everyone including his own son.

I don't know about advancments for Indians in British rule, but the British certainly did away with many of the cruel pratices of the Mughals or practices that had been tolerated by Mughals such as wife burning.

I also seem to remember that Britain did a lot to make Indian roads safer which were really trouble by murderous bandits and criminals.

Please know I am not a fan of the British Empire, and I generally push back when people begin celebrating Winston Churchill too much. He is presented in the West as this great freedom fighter. Sure... for us he was. But he did a lot of it to preserve the British empire which can hardly be called a "freedom project."

But for me a lot of these things is about specific empires, countries and nations. I don't evaluate history in terms of "did the ruler have white, yellow, brown or black skin."

I would rather see the British empire called out specifically rather than some nebulous "white empires." If one instead talk about old European colonial empires one is being more specific and put it in more proper cultural context.

E.g. the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was also a "white empire" judging by skin color, but hardly the kind you have in mind. It was not a colonial empire.