Interesting question, and a complex one. Morally, the global community should not "embrace" its colonial history. Colonialism allowed major Western powers to exploit many peoples in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas for several centuries. Europeans justified their actions by claiming that they were civilizing their colonial subjects, bringing them Christianity and imposing Western forms of government.
However, Westerners could "embrace" colonialism to the extent that it contributed to Western nations' economic wealth; and those who were colonized could "embrace" the system to the extent that, arguably, colonialism was a precursor to multiculturalism. Let's begin with the economic issue.
In his recent study Empire of Cotton, historian Sven Beckert argues that the emancipation of slaves in the United States, itself a former colony, was the impetus for European nations to colonize countries in warmer climes where they could grow cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco -- all of which had been cultivated in North America. These trades had made the Southern and Caribbean planter classes very wealthy. All of these "cash crops," as they were called, were in universal demand.
Cotton was especially important after the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-18th century. Various states in the Deep South, including Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and eastern Texas, were key to its cultivation due to having the proper climate. Textile mills in New England and Great Britain relied on the South to provide cotton for their mills. With the end of the Civil War, however, cotton cultivation declined in the South. With demand still high, Western powers needed to look elsewhere -- to places where the climate was ideal and labor costs would be cheap.
Arguably, much of the wealth that Westerners accrued from trade and manufacturing is due to colonialism. Aside from the crops aforementioned, there was also the mining of metals and precious stones which took place in sub-Saharan nations; tea cultivation in China and India; the cultivation of rubber in Indochina; and the wealth gained from the tourism industry. Because these nations were not independent, subjects were allowed menial jobs within the industries (usually doing the most labor-intensive work), but were not allowed any stake in them. Colonialism kept its subjects poor and servile, while colonizers grew wealthier and more powerful.
One can mark the beginning of the end of colonialism with India achieving independence from Britain in 1940. After this, nations throughout Asia, Africa, and North America begin to throw off colonial rule and forge paths toward self-determination, which, to the dismay of Western powers, sometimes involved an embrace of Communism.
Colonialism left many nations poor, disorderly, and vulnerable to political extremism. As a result, people from these nations who sought better lives for themselves and their families immigrated to the West or, in dire circumstances, became refugees. Many of these people were better able to integrate into their new homes because, due to colonialism, they had already been taught the language and may have adapted some Western customs. Still, many others brought different customs and religions, and all were of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
To include these former subjects into their nations, Europeans had to rethink what it means to be British or French, for example. They have also had to address issues of racism and xenophobia which, of course, still remain unresolved, and are undoubtedly the result of ideologies put forth to justify colonial rule in previous centuries.
We should "embrace" colonialism to the extent that it is a fact of our collective history. We should acknowledge that much of the West's wealth was gained by exploiting people in eastern and southern climes. It is also interesting to consider how colonialism -- an inhumane and divisive system -- has helped give way to multiculturalism and globalism, systems that bring us all closer.
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