I thought it was a bit of a joke that many westerners are still supporters of colonialism but it’s apparently true.
Oh Western support for imperialism is still alive and well, Ukraine has shown that. At the outset of the conflict you had people saying that Ukraine shouldn’t have sought closer ties to the West because it would inevitably piss off Russia; or, that the US/West should negotiate a peace treaty. They brought up how during the Cold War, American imperialists agreed that Ukraine should stay in the Russian sphere of influence.
All of that thinking is just imperialism. If you say country X should not seek certain international ties because it will piss off country Y, you’re defending the idea that X is Y’s possession and it must have Y’s approval to exercise any self determination. They aren’t sovereign if they can’t make their own decisions. Similarly, to advocate for the US to negotiate a peace treaty completely ignores Ukraine and doesn’t even ask what Ukraine wants. If the US brokers peace and Ukraine doesn’t want it, it’s imperialism in the form of daddy US knowing better and doing what’s best. This happened with the Cold War, where the American imperialists didn’t even bother to consider what Ukraine wanted when deciding which sphere of influence it should be in.
The hilarious, depressing part is that a lot of the people who argue these points also call themselves anti imperialist. Anti imperialism is fighting back against a global power who says you’re historically part of their empire and have no distinct culture, not suggesting you make peace with them and give them some of your land. Some people have made the logical fallacy that because the US has done bad and pro imperialist things, anything which the US dislikes must be good and anti imperialist. They don’t recognize that if the US dislikes what Russia’s doing, that doesn’t mean Russia is in the right.
I don’t expect you to fully agree with me, but I hope we at least agree that what I’ve described is also imperialism. It’s a general test to see if someone actually dislikes imperialism or if they just dislike the West and give a pass to non Western imperialism. I sincerely hope you’re the former.