Monday, May 9, 2022

A Review: Colonising Egypt by Timothy Mitchell

Mitchell, Timothy. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
 In his book Colonising Egypt, Timothy Mitchell examines the process of modernization within Egypt. After a first glance at the title, one expects a detailed study of the circumstances leading to the British occupation of 1882 and the British domination of Egypt after the defeat of the Egyptian nationalistic government. Yet what one discovers is a far more theoretical examination of the process of westernization within Egypt than historical analysis. The book's purpose is not to survey British imperialism in Egypt but rather "a study of the power to colonise."(IX)  Mitchell lays out his goals in the preface when he declares,


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)

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.

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.

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