Inferiority Complex

I’ve grown up repeatedly hearing about “colonial mentality” but there was no greater emphasis on the subject in my 14 years of experience as student. Or maybe I was just, as the popular Filipino joke goes, absent when it was taught by the professor. Due to the ubiquitous-ness of the term, it would usually just come in from one ear and out through the other. I didn’t bother to look for its real significance, causes and possible consequences. I just knew it ain’t a good thing.

I always find myself surrounded by Filipinos complaining over this country’s flaws, and this country’s people’s flaws. But what gets me annoyed is when these people view these imperfections as grounds to eventually hate their own and look up to the rest of the world. I criticize things not just for the hell of it (though in some cases, yes). I criticize things because I know something better could have been made to it. Have I become so demanding? Perhaps I only wanted the best. But I never looked down to this country despite the blemishes.

This Rizalish attitude of mine challenges millions of Filipinos who, throughout the years, lost their faith already. Few years ago, a popular news program confronted the viewers with one striking question: Is there hope for the Philippines? Some had high expectations but a handful divulged suspicion. If a country’s success is measured by its people’s satisfaction, the Philippines will apparently rank at the bottom. I understand that. But mocking our own won’t make us any better.

It appears that Filipinos suffer from what the scholars refer to as cultural cringe – an internalized inferiority complex causing people in a country to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries. If that is indeed true, I believe that our schools and other academic institutions should give emphasis on Filipino culture, further highlighting on colonial mentality. (Parang beauty queen lang noh?)

But is cultural cringe an overstatement or plain reality?