Great answer, Jonathan.
If we've got you here answering questions: given that the past decade has seen a renewed and revitalised discussion about the memory of imperialism and colonialism in Western cultures, has that- in particular- had any effect on how you imagine the Malê Rising universe? Did, for example, 'Rhodes Must Fall' make you reconsider how you depicted surviving European colonies in Africa?
I hope that doesn't sound accusatory, it's 12:30 here and I'm too tired (and frankly, tipsy) to fine the question down.
Wouldn't even matter if it did - I'm pretty hard to offend.
Anyway, "Rhodes Must Fall" happened while I was finishing the main timeline, and it wasn't really anything new. Decolonization of public space has been an issue for a long time - witness, for instance, renaming of cities (Leopoldville --> Kinshasa, Salisbury ---> Harare) and the periodic controversies over the Faidherbe statues in Senegal. I was very much aware of this when I was writing this story - I
hope I wouldn't have to be told that colonialism is an exploitative practice that leaves trauma and controversies over memory in its wake.
Colonialism is also a continuum, and so are the responses to it. At one extreme are genocidal hellscapes like the Congo Free State; at the other end are places like Mayotte that saw enough in it for themselves to want to stay; and there's a lot of space in between. Of course, given the inherently exploitative nature of colonialism, the median is a lot closer to the Congo Free State than to Mayotte or Aruba, which is why nearly all colonies fought for independence - but if you talk to, say, many middle and upper-class Nigerians (to use the example I know best), there's a lot of nuance in how they view the colonial period.
ITTL, colonialism is still an inherently exploitative relationship, and most colonies still chose independence. OTOH, there were more constraints to the exploitation, both because Europe depleted its resources and manpower two decades earlier than OTL and because the colonized peoples were better able to resist and to force better treatment. So the median was a bit further toward the right of the curve, the colonized peoples were able to force more benefit for themselves out of the relationship, and there were
more Mayottes and Arubas even though those were still not the norm. There were also more New Caledonias and Puerto Ricos - places like Gabon and Algeria that remained with the metropole but had many discontents - as well as the singular case of Portugal where the colonies basically took over. So I think the surviving European possessions in Africa ITTL, and the ways in which they negotiated their relationships with their respective metropoles, are part of the continuum, as are the very different, more Rhodes Must Fall-like ways that other post-colonial states ITTL chose to remember.
I'm definitely aware that this is the aspect of TTL that has come up for the most critical discussion - fairly so, I think - both while the timeline was in progress and now. I wouldn't say, though, that TTL represents an attempt to "improve" colonialism. The colonial relationship is still an exploitative one. To the extent that the exploitation was tempered, it wasn't because Europeans became more beneficient or altruistic, it was because they faced stronger constraints; to the extent colonialism ITTL evolved into more equal relationships in some places, that happened because the colonized peoples forced it to do so. Whether that's a satisfactory answer is in the eye of the beholder; I've certainly been wrong about other things.