India was also better run under British rule, that was also a long time ago, but it was still better under British Mandate than the current situation. Iraq was better run under Saddam. And Syria under Assad. And Cuba, Venezuela, …
The examples above show that not every ruler is “great” or desirable but the alternatives are often worse. The problem in the 20th century is that Western leaning governments were replaced with either flavors of communism “that was never tried” compounded with a very anti-Western view from the West itself that any interference in foreign affairs after deposing some evil was “the great sin of colonialism”. Self determination of a people that are Islamist or communist leaning results in that determination.
Guess what, Native Americans colonized other Native Americans, Africans colonized large parts of Africa, slavery was only abandoned by the US and the Brits some 300 years ago, nobody else in the world agreed at that point and no non-Western view whether communism or Islamism will ever agree because both the religion of Marx and the religion of Mohammed require the poor to work for the rich and the state at no cost, they require an “untermensch” to perform the labor and to vilify.