I guess people in countries that were colonised, eg South America, must think about colonisation - if ever they do think about it - in terms of "there but the grace of God go I", aswhere we in the West have suffered considerable "reverse colonisation" - the new arrivals say "we are over here because you were over there".
Over time since the sixties, we've had to change the curricula in schools, rewrite history to include revisionist points of view ie accounts written from the points of view of the colonised as well. Schoolchildren today learn about the mistreatment of the people in the colonies eg the way the Indonesians were treated by the Dutch was nothing to be proud of, they kept them pig-ignorant for example.
Our obsession with colonisation comes from the "diversity" in the populations at home, and also from "globalisation" as we travel abroad for business and leisure. We have become sensitive and aware of these issues of equality, respect and justice.
This is an awareness that minority groups in our midst now shout across the social media, they shout the need for social change, they want the same opportunities and rights as the natives enjoy.
Through empathy, they get it, after all we were at school together and now we're at work together. Empathy means inclusivity and acceptance, as the basis for equal treatment.
Empathy explains this push to reconsider public symbols of past glories, like statues and monuments, which make heroes of figures from that past that may have caused great suffering to families back in the homeland. Today, the pioneers sent to open up lands for colonisation are not heroes, their exploits are not heroic, they are tyrants, slave masters and these reminders of past glories are offensive.
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