Colonial advisors critiqued colonial practices but never questioned colonization itself.

Evidence

But some Orientalists were also civil servants and as such served as counselors and advisors to the government as well as semigovernmental agencies and institutions. Some, as is well known, functioned as colonial officers and on-site experts who greatly influenced colonial policies. None of these colonial advisors, to my knowledge, questioned the originary rationale of the colonialist enterprise, although some surely did criticize certain colonialist practices (William Jones being one prominent case in point). None of them questioned the Distinction, much less did they articulate its malevolent effects on what they were doing (assuming that they were always aware of it); and none of them interrogated the state either as a project or on principle. If there was any questioning, it was about incidentals, mostly colonial practices, even the situational justifiability of colonizing a country. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 206

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the difference between reformist critique within a system and fundamental challenge — applies to modern consultants, think-tank advisors, tech company ethics boards.
• XREF: Parallels The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the complicity-vs-critique dynamic; also echoes the law-merchant scholars’ embeddedness in capitalist institutions.