Europeans were the first to gain the ability to project power on a global scale and thus became the colonisers. There is a borderline racist trend in some parts of academia to frame colonialism as being a consequence of the inherent value system of white Europeans - but while it is true that racist and chauvinistic attitudes were used to defend colonialism, I think it is fairly certain that had Africans been the first to develop the ability to administrate a state across oceans then we could be living in a world now where England, Italy, and Denmark are struggling to reclaim their respective identities and sovereignty after only recently gaining freedom from their Yoruba and Kongo oppressors.

Africans had European colonies before Europeans had African colonies.

Carthage predates Rome, and Carthage had colonies all over Hiberia, which Rome later conquered.

Well the Carthaginians were semitic people from modern-day Lebanon IIRC, so it's a bit of a stretch to call them African.

Carthage was in what is now called "Tunisia".

It was founded by people from Tyre which is indeed in Lebanon.

After gaining independence in the seventh century BC, Carthage gradually expanded its economic and political hegemony across northwest Africa, Iberia, and the major islands of the western Mediterranean.

In 146 BC, after the third and final Punic War, the Romans destroyed Carthage and established a new city in its place. All remaining Carthaginian dependencies, as well as other Phoenician city-states, came under Roman rule by the first century AD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage

European colonialism was certainly novel in its sheer scale, and its effects are felt to this day in pretty much every non European country barring a small handful.

Nope, because only the brits surpassed the previous biggest empire, the mongols. And mongols did come with some advancements in tech as well, but also plenty of destruction.

The Mongolian Empire was very different in operation from the British or other colonial empires. It was not set up with the aim of wealth extraction and economic dominance of subjugated territories back to the parent country. You could not call it "colonial" by any widely accepted definition of the word.

Because it collapse still in the part of expanse. Other empires like roman was just like the british. In fact the definition of empire is the dominion of "second class" territories in virtue of the "first class".

I thought Mongolians were more on wealth extraction and less on economic dominance - essentially demanding tribute and after setting up an administrative class after a wholesale purge of the previous military elite the only demand being to keep the tribute flowing.

Less economic dominance because they were nomadic raiders not traders or industrialists.

Their complete cultural apathy is largely what makes them "not colonalism" technically. In the same way that samuari aren't technically feudalism because they aren't landowners but servants of a lord. Although they work by analogy pretty well.

I didn't mean to imply it was an European innovation.