Reading Egypt's postcolonial state through Frantz Fanon: hegemony, dependency and development

This essay looks at how Fanon’s work on the postcolonial state can be used to interpret political changes in the postcolonial world, particularly his call to “stretch Marxism”. I use his notion of a dependent “native bourgeoisie” created through colonialism to look at the Egyptian capitalist class under British colonial rule, the Nasser era and the Sadat era. I argue the Nasserist ruling class did not resemble the dependent “native bourgeoisie” Fanon spoke of as emerging right after the end of colonial rule, and that it was the Egyptian bourgeoisie under British colonial rule and the ruling class formed by Sadat that more closely fulfilled this role. Moreover, I argue Fanon’s call to understand capitalist development in postcolonial contexts as tied to colonialism provides a useful lens through which to revisit the evolution of the Egyptian postcolonial state.