Mentality of the Oppressed: An Analysis of Czech Inferiority Complex Towards the West

In this paper, we examine what we see as a Czech feeling of inferiority towards the western nations. Though the so-called post-communist syndrome seems to be a popular way to explain the negative self-perception of Czechs, we will argue that this phenomenon stems from the trauma, which Czechs experienced when transitioning from communism to the globalized capitalistic market. We believe that this trauma was brought about by the rhetoric of ''coming back to Europe'' as it is based on a heritage of orientalism in Europe, in combination with the general mentality of the oppressed, as thematized by the post-colonial theorists such as Franz Fanon or Paulo Freire. To verify our hypothesis, we conducted a survey with 189 respondents from all the regions of the Czech Republic