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Notes -
State capacity has increased a lot. The Congolese tribesman wouldn't have cared much either way 200 years ago, because his life wasn't impacted.
But once the government starts inserting itself into your life, you start caring. When they come to your village, and fence off your pastures, and make you learn a different language just so you can fill in the form for the grazing permit just so you can hopefully put your cows where they've always been, you'll start caring. Or when they forcibly send your kids to government school, and tell them to spit on everything you hold sacred, and then make you utterly dependent on them because they've learnt the language and can fill in form whereas you can't, you'll start caring. The King of Mbanza couldn't have done any of that if he wanted.
Case in point: the US-backed government in Afghanistan tried to push gender stuff on the locals to the point that it literally caused rebellions (archive link).
Of course this is true of all governments, not just colonial governments. The expansion of state power caused plenty of strife in Europe too. On the other hand it was worse in the colonies, because in Europe it was developed gradually, and then in the colonies it was imposed all at once.
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