Internal Colonialism

Internal colonialism is a notion of structural political and economic inequalities between regions within a nation state. The term is used to describe the uneven effects of economic development on a regional basis, otherwise known as "uneven development", and to describe the exploitation of minority groups within a wider society. This is held to be similar to the relationship between metropole and colony, in colonialism proper.

The first known use of the concept was in a 1957 book by Leo Marquard, regarding South Africa. However, widespread use followed Pablo González Casanova, who used it to describe Mexico in an 1965 article. Gonzalez Casanova was both critiqued by and influenced Andre Gunder Frank, who further theorised internal colonialism as a form of "uneven development". Sergio Salvi, a poet, essayist, and historian of minority languages, used the term "internal colonies" in the cultural sense in Le nazioni proibite: Guida a dieci colonie interne dell'Europa occidentale ("The forbidden nations: Guide to ten internal colonies of western Europe") (1973), among which he included Catalonia, Scotland, Brittany and Occitania. Other pivotal works on the subject were published during the mid-1970s by Harold Wolpe and Michael Hechter.

An internal colony supposedly produces wealth for the benefit of those areas most closely associated with the state, usually the capital area. The members of "internal colonies" are distinguished as different by a cultural variable such as ethnicity, language, or religion. They are then excluded from prestigious social and political positions, which are dominated by members of the metropolis (Abercrombie et al., 2000:183).

The main difference between neocolonialism and internal colonialism is the source of exploitation. In the former, the control comes from outside the nation-state, while in the latter it comes from within.

Sri Lanka is a very good example of internal colonialism:

International Dimensions of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, Prof John P. Neelsen (Tuebingen University, Germany), 20th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, 8–11 July 2008: A shortcoming in international law as to internal colonialism and the right to self-determination renders the current types of international intervention not just inadequate to contribute to a negotiated solution of ethnic conflicts, but tends to inflame them.

Power Sharing as Peace Structure: The Case of Sri Lanka, IICP Working Paper, No. 2, 2005, Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies: ‘’External Colonialism: Democracy :: Internal Colonialism: Human Rights’’

National Liberation Movements in Global Context, Dr. Jeff Sluka, Massey University, New Zealand Proceedings of the Conference on 'Tamils in New Zealand', July 1996 - Wellington, New Zealand. This situation, where a state exploits and oppresses peoples and regions within their own boundaries much the way the European colonial powers used to exploit and oppress foreign colonies, has been described as "internal colonialism" (Hechter 1975). Sri Lanka is an example of this. Many Third World peoples found that after "independence" they had simply traded one set of oppressors (white) for another (brown and black). The result is that today many Third World states, most of them the direct or indirect result of national liberation wars themselves, are now fighting against national liberation movements within their borders.

Fourth World Colonialism, Indigenous Minorities And Tamil Separatism In Sri Lanka, Bryan Pfaffenberger (Virginia University), Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 16, 1984: Despite the withdrawal of colonial power from Third World countries, forms of oppression that might well be termed "colonial" still persist in many of them — the oppression wrought by nationalist Third World governments whose regimes fail to respect the rights of indigenous minorities. For ethnic and regional minorities in many Third World countries, the arrogance and injustice of these governments matches — and often exceeds — those of the departed European colonial regime. The island nation Sri Lanka presents a case in point. Little public investment appears to reach the Tamil lands….