A colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization, i.e. them being colonized by another group. It corresponds with the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to one's own. The term has been used by postcolonial scholars to discuss the transgenerational effects of colonialism present in former colonies following decolonization. It is commonly used as an operational concept for framing ideological domination in historical colonial experiences. In psychology colonial mentality has been used to explain instances of collective depression, anxiety, and other widespread mental health issues in populations that have experienced colonization. Notable Marxist influences on the postcolonial concept of colonial mentality include Frantz Fanon's works on the fracturing of the colonial psyche through Western cultural domination, as well as the concept of cultural hegemony developed by Italian Communist Party Founder Antonio Gramsci.
Influences from Marxism
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon's Marxist writings on imperialism, racism, and decolonizing struggles have influenced post-colonial discussions about the internalization of colonial prejudice. Fanon first tackled the problem of, what he called, the "colonial alienation of the person" as a mental health issue through psychiatric analysis.
In The Wretched of the Earth (French: Les Damnés de la Terre), published in 1961, Fanon used psychiatry to analyze how French colonization and the carnage of the Algerian War had mentally affected Algerians' self-identity and mental health. The book argues that during the period of colonization there was a subtle and constant mental pathology that developed within the colonial psyche. Fanon argued that the colonial psyche is fractured by the lack of mental and material homogeneity as a result of the colonial power's Western culture being pressured onto the colonized population despite the existing material differences between them.
Here Fanon expands traditional Marxist understandings of historical materialism to explore how the dissonance between material existence and culture functions to transform the colonized people through the mold of the Western bourgeoisie. This meant that the native Algerian came to view their own traditional culture and identity through the lens of colonial prejudice. Fanon observed that average Algerians internalized and then openly repeated remarks that were in line with the institutionalized racist culture of the French colonizers; dismissing their own culture as backward due to the internalization of Western colonial ideologies.
According to Fanon this results in a destabilizing existential conflict within the colonized culture:"In the West, the family circle, the effects of education, and the relatively high standard of living of the working class provide a more or less efficient protection against the harmful action of these pastimes. But in an African country, where mental development is uneven, where the violent collision of two worlds has considerably shaken old traditions and thrown the universe of the perceptions out of focus, the impressionability and sensibility of the Young African are at the mercy of the various assaults made upon them by the very Nature of Western Culture."
Colonial India
During the period of European colonial rule in India, Europeans in India typically regarded many aspects Indian culture with disdain and supported colonial rule as a beneficial "civilizing mission". Colonial rule in India was framed as an act which was beneficial to the people of India, rather than a process of political and economic dominance by a small minority of foreigners.