Colonising refers
not simply to the establishing of a European presence but also to the spread of
a political order that inscribes in the social world a new conception of space,
new forms of personhood, and new means of manufacturing the experience of the
real.(xiv)
In
the preface, Mitchell clarifies his use and debt to Michel Foucault, Martin
Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida as he looks at the
meaning of structure and representation. He uses the ideas of these thinkers to
explore how the exhibition and European ideals not only mimic the real world
but also superimpose a "framework of meaning" upon other territories
and people.(xiv)
Mitchell begins with a look at the
World Exhibition of Paris in the summer of 1889 during a visit by the Egyptian
delegation on their way to an Oriental Congress in Sweden. The Egyptians found
themselves the object of stares while in Europe. Still, the portrayal of Cairo
at the exhibit horrified the delegation with its chaos and French notions of
life in Cairo. These exhibitions of Oriental life fashioned an image of life in
the East that Europeans could quickly grasp. Oriental exhibitions became
popular in the 19th Century and projected the world as a picture to
investigate and experience.(6) The presentations of foreign life presented a
world that the European could experience in person and created a paradox
between representation and reality. The commercialization of the exhibit
reflected the "commercial machinery of the rest of the city."(10) The
European world outside the exhibition hall also presented an ideal world. When Europeans
journey outside their culture, the exhibition view of the world is imposed on
other cultures, including Egypt. As Europeans described the Oriental world,
they portrayed the world outside their own as if it were an exhibit but as a "dilapidated
and mismanaged" display.(22)
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| Egyptian house in the History of Habitation exhibit, Paris Exposition, 1889. Library of Congress |
Early in the 19th Century,
the world as an exhibit became significant as the military faced reorganization
into a new order. Previously armies in Egypt were only temporary and used only
occasionally for particular purposes. The new order army, or Nizam Jadid, drafted large numbers of
peasants to create a modern army subject to a form of discipline never before
seen in Egypt. Mitchell uses the analysis of Foucault in which the state uses
the power of control to "infiltrate, re-order, and colonise." (35) He
uses the term "enframing" to describe the process of construction,
dividing up, and containing neutral space into barracks or villages. Enframing
brought a method of control and order to Egyptian spaces. The army's
organization became permanent as men lived together in a new disciplined
community even in times of peace. Military regulations based upon European
organizations saw the transformation of Egyptian soldiers into a machine.
In addition to the army's reorganization,
Egypt also saw the reconstruction and rebuilding of rural villages using model
housing to impart discipline. While sources for Egyptian housing were
unavailable, Mitchell examined a study of village reconstruction in French
Algeria. Mitchell uses the Algerian Kabyle housing to make conclusions about
space and order in Egypt, yet spends little space providing documentation on
the difference and similarities between the two regions. It's unclear whether
documentary evidence exists in Egyptian archives. Like the army's organization,
villages were organized into a system of private estates to produce order and
discipline. The ordering process was not an arbitrary organization but benefited
urban-based landowners and commercial interests.(43) The reorganization of
rural villages brought control and standardization. In Algeria, the goal of
rebuilding villages was military control, and Mitchell assumes there were
similar purposes in the organization of Egyptian villages.
Mitchell also expounds on the
changes brought to urban areas of Egypt, where new methods of organization
brought more extensive roadways and open boulevards, leading to a period of new
demolition and construction. The elimination of narrow alleys and streets was a
cause of crime and disease, while the reordering of the cities brought order to
urban spaces.(45) Central to the reorganization of Egyptian cities was the
placement of schools and universities into prominent places of urban areas. New
schools placed at the center of the city indicated the importance of education in
the politics of the new state. Compared to the educational disorder conducted
in the local mosques, the new schools emphasized order and discipline.
Egyptians adopted the Lancaster school method for Egypt, which stressed a controlled
and disciplined educational model. Every hour of the student's day was planned
and organized. Students moved from different learning centers at the ringing of
a bell. The Lancaster school promised order and obedience to transform the
political structure. The new method of enframing with its goal of discipline
and order created the need for education.(92) The western forms of education
were not forced by Europeans but adopted by the Egyptians before the arrival of
the British. This remains another example that the process of conlonisng or
westernization began before Eygpt became a British protectorate but began early
in the 19th Century.
In addition to the need for a modern
reorganization of schooling, enframing also needed a restructuring through the
implementation of model villages. The model village “introduced a distinction
between the materiality of the buildings and the set of ‘directions for use’
required to live in them.”(95) According to Jesuit priest Henry Ayrout, the
model village required a link between the village and education. The
reorganization of the village at the rural level was a strategy that sought to
change the society from the inside out. Changing the structure and material of
the village leads to a reeducation of all the inhabitants, beginning with the
women. Mitchell depends very heavily upon Foucault pointing to how the
reorganization of exact physical space leads to power over people. This power
shaped not only the physical but also worked on the mind by reconstructing the
interior. With the domination of large private estates, a new class of landless
peasants needed to learn the discipline of an hourly worker. In ‘After We Have
Captured Their Bodies,’ Mitchell examines the efforts to supervise, discipline,
and control the population. The government established a system of policing
that supervised and controlled the population through tickets, registration,
inspections, and raids.
Authorities also sought to transform
within by changing the way people thought about health and medicine. This
required an overhaul of the way Egyptians thought about their health by
replacing folk medicine with modern 19th Century European medicine.
This new way of medical thing obligated Egyptians to “impose an alternative
idiom of explanation and an alternative medical practice.”(99) Often this led
to a rejection of folk medicine even when the folk remedy led to a similar cure
as modern practices. The goal of thinking in a new way required use of modern
health practices but mostly changed the way people thought about their bodies.
Changing Egyptian character also
required implementation of the Western practices of political science and
ethnography. The Egyptian character faced a careful examination and found
wanting due to supposed indolence present in the population. Indolence pointed
to the lack of civilization and a reason for the deplorable condition of the
Egyptian people.(106) Politics served as one tool in the need to change the
Egyptian character.
1882 saw the occupation of Egypt by
the British after a bombardment and overthrow of a new nationalist government. As
stated, the colonization process began with changes implemented before British
occupation, but the British accelerated more concepts for the Egyptians to
internalize and apply. But British changes met some resistance from Egyptians
as they sought to counter European linguistic revisions.
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| British conquest of Egypt (1882) from Wikipedia |
Mitchell demonstrates the
transformation of Egypt through the illustration of the world-as-exhibition.(179)
The work is not a history of imperialism in Egypt but rather an examination in
the impact of a Eurocentric and capitalistic framework upon Egypt. The book is
very theoretical and makes generous use of thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida,
making for a difficult read. His use of Heidegger’s age of world exhibition
appears to be an interesting connection but needed more elaboration. Does the
transformation of Oriental landscapes reflect the order and logic found in a
Cartesian notion of the mind and colonial politics?(178) Mitchell desires his
readers to see the world exhibition as the model which transformed Egypt, and
his book reflects the complexity of the interaction between Egypt and Europe.
