Zimbabweans got independence but nothing changed and the whites continued owning all the land and farming as usual using the blacks for cheap labour. Basically they had got independence but nothing had changed on the ground. Then Mugabe told the blacks, "I will take the land from your white masters and give it to you so that you can farm it as land owners and not as squatters as you have done for ages. And infact the land belonged to you before the white man took it from you". Then the west imposed sanctions since Mugabe had disposessed their white descendants off their land and given it back to the original black owners. The west killed the Zimbabwean currency but Mugabe being a genius adopted the US dollar as the zim currency and brought things under control. The US was unable to devalue the US dollars circulating in zimbabwe.
The fact is that a black Zimbabwean is better off tilling his own 5acres to earn a living than toiling on a mzungus 10,000 acre estate in a "prosperous white controlled zimbabwe" while being a squatter and being paid slave wages. I have a lot of respect for Mugabe for empowering his people. Infact he said he wouldn't pay for land that had been stolen from Africans. Someone can't steal your car and then tell you that you must pay (to compensate the thief) for you to get it back.

I think just as a child must fall while taking the first steps and gets back again - we must do the same in whatever circumstances we find ourselves as a nation or as cultures. Colonialism was not to our benefit. The tragedy of colonialism is that at a macrolevel everything looked nice and dandy. Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana types - but the truth is the mwafrika in that setting does not do much coz of the system. I dare say - Africans in SA are better off now than they were under mzungu! better off is a matter of perspective - having your future in your hands is fairly better than relaying on someone whose people made the same mistakes you will make and treats you as a sub human. Africans there may not have all they want but are better off. Prior to Mandela dying I visited SA and overheard some fishermen talking about how nothing really changed (perceivable) after 94, they looked at uncle bob and said - afadhali hao... shamba ni yao sasa - everything else can be worked on. in SA land ownership really didn't change. I am so happy mkoloni went when he did and allowed us to make the mistakes we did back then before social media times.

Ethiopia wasn't colonized. Is it much better?

Google a region called guinea Papua in Indonesia .that region wasn't colonised and has people of the same dark pigment as we do. They have nothing much and live on harvesting honey and bush meat. If you have Netflix search for documentary called pururambo or youtube it .colonialism helped bring light even though there are sad side of it but it lit up .
Even America was colonised by the same British and changed the life of native americans to "prosperity".

PNG is not in Indonesia. It is still 'colonized' by Australia.You know who is the Head of State of PNG? Queen Elizabeth!

Ati native americans prospered? They were virtually wiped out!