Editing Colonial mentality (section)

== 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"<ref>{{Cite book|title=Black Skin, White Masks|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|publisher=Pluto Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-7453-2849-2|location=London, United Kingdom|pages=xxiii}}</ref> as a mental health issue through [[Psychiatric assessment|psychiatric]] analysis.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Robertson|first1=Michael|last2=Walter|first2=Garry|year=2009|title=Frantz Fanon and the confluence of psychiatry, politics, ethics and culture|journal=Acta Neuropsychiatrica|volume=21|issue=6|pages=308–309|doi=10.1111/j.1601-5215.2009.00428.x|s2cid=143798499 |issn=0924-2708}}</ref>

In ''[[The Wretched of the Earth]]'' ([[French language|French]]: ''Les Damnés de la Terre''), published in 1961, Fanon used psychiatry to analyze how [[French Algeria|French colonization]] and the carnage of the [[Algerian War]] had mentally affected Algerians' [[National identity|self-identity]] and mental health.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bell|first=Vikki|date=2011-01-04|title=Introduction: Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth 50 Years On|journal=Theory, Culture & Society|language=en|volume=27|issue=7–8|pages=7–14|doi=10.1177/0263276410383721|s2cid=143492378}}</ref> The book argues that during the period of colonization there was a subtle and constant mental pathology that developed within the colonial psyche.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/250|title=The Wretched of the Earth|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|publisher=Grove Press, Inc|others=Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980, Farrington, Constance|year=1961|isbn=978-0802150837|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/250 250]|oclc=1316464}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/194|title=The Wretched of the Earth|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|publisher=Grove Press, Inc|others=Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980, Farrington, Constance|year=1961|isbn=978-0802150837|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/194 194]|oclc=1316464}}</ref>

Here Fanon expands traditional Marxist understandings of [[historical materialism]] to explore how the dissonance between [[Base and superstructure|material existence and culture]] functions to transform the colonized people through the mold of the Western [[bourgeoisie]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/162|title=The Wretched of the Earth|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|publisher=Grove Press, Inc|others=Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980, Farrington, Constance|year=1961|isbn=978-0802150837|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/162 162]|oclc=1316464}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/161|title=The Wretched of the Earth|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|publisher=Grove Press, Inc|others=Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980, Farrington, Constance|year=1961|isbn=978-0802150837|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/161 161]|oclc=1316464}}</ref>

According to Fanon this results in a destabilizing existential conflict within the colonized culture:<blockquote>"In [[Western world|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."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/194|title=The Wretched of the Earth|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|publisher=Grove Press, Inc|others=Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980, Farrington, Constance|year=1961|isbn=978-0802150837|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wretchedofearth08fano/page/194 194–195]|oclc=1316464}}</ref></blockquote>