Well I think one thing and which the article describes well, is that colonialism gave external pressure for those nations moving forward. Like being bullied and abused in school before graduating, colonialism gave an identity mixed in with the culture and language the oppressors brought. Tribes that would probably never have formed a country together otherwise, were piled in with arbitrary borders with no regard did it split the tribes or not. And given a name and a flag and told they were now Kenyan or whoever from here on out.

Now of course bullying and abusing is wrong and the bullied have eternal trauma of being subjected to it, but I think there are two perspectives to it. You can either look at it as the worst thing that happened "I would have become rich and famous had I not been bullied" or as something that made you stronger "I've been through worse".

Granted, the analogy between bullying and colonialism might not be completely accurate. But like everything in life things are mostly grey instead of black and white. Can you quantify which color is stronger and equal it as being one or the other? Maybe, but there should be a lengthy rationale how you came up with the conclusion to reflect the best how world truly is (and yes yes, there are exceptions to this rule also). Which the article actually does well, and I wish this type of rationality to difficult issues would be more popular.