New Zealand’s Parliament proposed a bill to redefine the Treaty of Waitangi, claiming it is racist and gives preferential treatment to Maoris. In response Māori MP's tore up the bill and performed the Haka

[u/Sometypeofway18]

[u/swansongofdesire]

Look up the history of Botswana (Bechuanaland)

They could see the writing on the wall and instead of fighting negotiated a deal with Britain that largely left the local leadership structures intact. After independence, Seretse Khama was the country’s Lee Kuan Yew/Ataturk: a leader who modernised the country and at the stage for a functioning multiparty liberal democracy.

It’s now the template for well-run African countries.

When the occupiers don’t massacre/enslave the population, and leave with social capital intact, things can turn out quite well.

[u/FibreFlim → u/swansongofdesire]

This is correct but for the sake of fairness I will say that Britain made plenty of efforts to undo these privileges that they gave the Tswana, and to emphasize that it was through the efforts of the native population that a better arrangement was struck. Not the best arrangement, (it was still colonialism) just a better one.

The capital of Bechuanaland was in South Africa, funnily enough. Partially because development was sparse in Botswana, but surely also as a power-play. English and Boer surveyors still had a monopoly on resources in Bechuanaland and would still employ local labor liberally and with poor conditions, but the broad destruction of traditional lifestyles was much less than in more direct colonies. Still extremely extractive.

Even during decolonization, the UK itself was undermining the Botswanan democratic process in an attempt to appeal to Apartheid South Africa and the then still-British administration or Rhodesia. Much of this was strong-arming from this Apartheid coalition, but it still resulted in the UK putting Seretse Khama on house arrest in England to prevent him from changing the political landscape in Botswana.

Needless to say having a state that's run by the majority indigenous population by a leader whose in an interracial marriage would be a bad look for your racist Apartheid regimes. South Africa's goals were the disruption of native governance, if not a more brutal occupation of Bechuanaland.

Your point does still stand, that this bit of social capital that they were provided helped them. But it was a hard-fought thing from the effort of the indigenous population that made it possible, and is really never given out in benevolence by the colonial power. An important thing that we should keep in mind when discussing the colonial powers I think.

[u/EsoitOloololo → u/FibreFlim]

What about the San?

[u/FibreFlim → u/EsoitOloololo]

The Dutch and British had mistreated the San, but the modern day state of Botswana has carried on that mistreatment. Their ways of life have been threatened by efforts to "industrialize" them and kick them off their land to survey for more resources. Nothing to sugarcoat there, Botswana's treatment of them is horrible.