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Colonial Bridgehead: Social and Special Change in Alexandria, 1850–1882

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Michael J. Reimer
Michael J. Reimer
Affiliation:
Department of History Georgetown University
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Extract

The great revolution was a technological revolution by which the West made its fortune, got the better of all the other living civilizations, and forcibly united them into a single society of literally worldwide range. The revolutionary Western invention was the substitution of the Ocean for the Steppe as the principal medium of world-communication. This use of the Ocean, first by sailing ships and then by steamships, enabled the West to unify the whole inhabited and habitable world.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , November 1988 , pp. 531 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

NOTES

Author's note: In May 1986 I received the Marshall Hodgson Memorial Prize of the Center for Middle East Studies, University of Chicago, for an earlier version of this article. I also wish to thank the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, for its support and four anonymous referees for their constructive criticism.Google Scholar

1 Toynbee, Arnold J., Civilization on Trial (New York, 1948), p. 70.Google Scholar

2 The New Cambridge Modern History, 14 vols. (Cambridge, 1960), X, 149–50.Google Scholar

3 On the theory of colonial urbanism, see Ross, R. J. and Telkamp, G. J., eds., Colonial Cities (Dordrecht, 1985). Aspects of this theory are elaborated below.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Mubarak, 'Ali Pasha, al-Khitat al-tawfiqiyya al-jadida, 20 vols. (Bulaq, 1887–1889).Google Scholar

5 The information given in this volume is of uneven value. Although arranged chronologically, there is no section devoted to the city's development under Sa'id Pasha, presumably because Mubarak was out of favor during that time. The statistical data must be treated with caution. Still, because the author held portfolios as Minister of Education, Public Works, and Charitable Endowments, he was in an excellent position to record what we have termed the sociospatial development of the city.Google Scholar

6 Although descriptive works of this kind abound, few give much insight into the actual conditions of life in Alexandria. Perhaps the best work of this kind is De Vaujany's, H.Alexandrie et la Basse-Egypte (Paris, 1885). The author was director of the Ecole des langues in Cairo and had made careful notes on the development of Alexandria, as well as other towns.Google Scholar

7 For the following, see Description de l'Egypte, 21 vols. (Paris, 1809–1822), 11/2, 272–98.Google Scholar

8 Scattered references in the chronicle of al-Jabarti, 'Aja'ib al-athar fi al-tarajim wa al-akhbar, tend to confirm Raymond's judgment that Alexandria in the eighteenth century was no more than “une assez médiocre bourgade, pauvre en monuments, et dont la population ne dépassait sans doute pas 10.000 habitants.” The volume of trade passing through Alexandria at this time seems not to have exceeded that of Egypt's other Mediterranean ports, Rashid and Dumyat. See Raymond, André, Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1973), 1, 166–67.Google Scholar

9 Mengin, Felix, Histoire sommaire de l'Egypte sous le gouvernement de Mohamed-Aly (Paris, 1839), p. 14.Google Scholar

10 This process has been analyzed in detail in Owen's, Roger outstanding work, Cotton and the Egyptian Economy 1820–1914 (Oxford, 1969). For the estimates given here, see pp. xxiii–xxiv, 40–41, 71–73.Google Scholar

11 Mubarak, Khitat, VII, 52;Google ScholarDe Vaujany, Alexandrie, p. 98.Google Scholar

12 Clot-Bey, , Aperçu general sur l'Egypte, 2 vols. (Paris, 1840), I, 192–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Mubarak, Khitat, VII, 54.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., VII, 57.

15 Adapted from 'Ayana, Fathi Abu, Sukkan al-Iskandariyya (Alexandria, 1980), pp. 26–27. It should be noted that all of these figures are estimates; the apparent exactness of some of the figures is illusory.Google Scholar

16 On the population of Alexandria in the nineteenth century, see Panzac, D., “Alexandrie: Evolution d'une ville cosmopolite au XIXe siècle,” Annales Islamologiques, 14 (1978), 195–215. On the general demographic situation in Egypt, cf. the same author's “Endémies, épidémies et population en Egypte au XIXe siècle,”Google Scholar in the collectively authored Egypte au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1982), pp. 83–100.Google Scholar

17 'Ayana, Abu, Sukkan al-Iskandariyya, pp. 26–29;Google Scholar and Baer, Gabriel, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago, 1969), pp. 133–48;Google Scholar and Jondet, M. Gaston, Atlas historique de la ville et des ports d'Alexandrie (Cairo, 1921).Google Scholar

18 al-Hakim, Muhammad Subhi 'Abd, Madinat al-Iskandariyya (Cairo, 1958), pp. 149–50;Google ScholarJondet, M. Gaston, Atlas historique, plate 35.Google Scholar

19 Mubarak, al- Khitat, VII, 62–63.Google Scholar

20 Ibid. The effects of the railway were not, however, immediate. The irregular and unsafe service during the early years of its operation discouraged its potential customers. See Owen, E. R. J., Cotton, p. 77.Google Scholar

21 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 60.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., VII, 69, 71–72, 85.

23 Ibid., VII, 66; The Times, 18 August 1873.Google Scholar

24 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 65. Two things stand out from Ali Mubarak's account of land prices: one, the valuation of quite small units of land; two, the diversity of currency used in Alexandria.Google Scholar As The Times (29 November 1875) noted: “Alexandria is a singularly cosmopolitan city. Every language and every coinage passes indifferently.”Google Scholar

25 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 62, 66–68.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., VII, 67. Land formerly sold by the faddan was now sold by the cubit.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., VII, 68.

30 Ibid., VII, 60.

31 Ibid., VII, 62.

32 The Times, 1 June 1877.Google Scholar

33 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 63.Google Scholar

34 Jondet, M. Gaston, Atlas historique, Plate 39. On street pattern as a clue to the composition of population in city quarters,Google Scholar see Abu-Lughod, Janet, Cairo (Princeton, 1971), p. 98.Google Scholar

35 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 68.Google Scholar

36 Abu-Lughod, Cairo, p. 158.Google Scholar

37 One small indication of this is the fact that both Muhammad 'Ali and Sa'id died in Alexandria. Sa'id was buried there.Google Scholar

38 This was the situation, for instance, in the North African cities colonized by the French. See, for example, Abu-Lughod, Janet, Rabat: Urban Apartheid in Morocco (Princeton, 1980),Google Scholar and Miège, J. L., “Algiers: Colonial Metropolis (1830–1961),” in Ross, and Telkamp, , eds., Colonial Cities, pp. 174–88.Google Scholar

39 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 64.Google Scholar

40 'Abd al-Hakim, Madinat al-Iskandariya, p. 152.Google Scholar

41 On the railroad's importance in the expansion of cotton cultivation and collection, see Owen, Cotton, pp. 77, 92–93.Google Scholar

42 The Times, 4 March 1873.Google Scholar

43 The Times, 4 March 1873, 26 May 1874, 31 Dec. 1874, 26 Oct. 1875;Google ScholarMubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 76–76;Google Scholar'Abd al-Hakim, Madinat al-Iskandariyya, p. 154.Google Scholar

44 The Times, 26 Oct. 1875.Google Scholar

45 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 76–78.Google ScholarConcerning cotton export and the new harbor works, see Owen, Cotton, pp. 127–28.Google Scholar

46 De Vaujany, H., Histoire de l'Egypte depuis des temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1885), p. 390.Google Scholar

47 The Times, 13 July 1878.Google Scholar

48 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 71.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., VII, 74.

50 Ibid.

51 Baer, Social History, p. 199.Google Scholar

52 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 66.Google Scholar

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.; Musallam, B. F., “The Modern Vision of Ali Mubarak,” in Serjeant, R. J., ed., The Islamic City (Paris, 1980), p. 199.Google Scholar

55 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 72.Google Scholar

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid., VII, 73.

60 Ibid., VII, 72.

61 Ibid.

62 Baer, Gabriel, Fellah and Townsman in the Middle East (London, 1982), pp. 63–78.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., p. 66.

64 Here again the situation is similar to that in Algiers where approximately 8,000 Europeans were on public assistance in 1900. Miège claims that the town contained a European “sub-proletariat.” Miège, “Algiers,” p. 176.Google Scholar

65 The Times, 17 Jan. 1870.Google Scholar

66 Abu 'Ayana, Sukkan al-lskandariyya, pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

67 Ibid.

68 Owen, Cotton, p. 85.Google Scholar

69 Abu 'Ayana, Sukkan al-Iskandariyya, pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

70 English representatives elected as assessors in commercial cases for the International Court outnumbered all other groups. This was one evidence of the power they wielded among the city's merchants. See The Times, 21 Feb. 1876.Google Scholar

71 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 74–75.Google Scholar

72 “One may be justified in speaking about the existence of guilds if within a certain area all the people occupied in a branch of the urban economy constitute a unit which, at one and the same time, fulfill various purposes, such as economic, fiscal, administrative, and social functions. A further condition is the existence of a framework of officers or functionaries chosen from among the members of such a unit and headed by a headman.” Baer, Gabriel, “The Administrative, Economic, and Social Functions of Turkish Guilds,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, I, 1 (01, 1970), 28. By this definition it seems doubtful that the collectives enumerated by Mubarak were guilds, for reasons given below.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Martin, Germain, Les bazars du Caire et les petits métiers arabes (Paris, 1910), p. 46. The point is disputed however;Google Scholar see Muhammad, Rauf 'Abbas Hamid, al-Haraka al-'ummaliyya fi Misr, (1899–1952) (Cairo, 1968), pp. 26–28.Google Scholar

74 As 'Ali Mubarak notes, the number enrolled in the dafatir al-tawa'if (guild registers) in the 1870s was more than three times the population of the town when Muhammad 'Ali assumed power.Google Scholar

75 Owen, Cotton, pp. 324–25.Google Scholar

76 The Times, 27 June 1877. The report on Egypt for this date gives the following candid, cavalier account: “The Alexandria public complains of the fashion lately adopted by the Government of selling all produce in huge lots, and thus practically creating a monopoly for the merchant princes and shutting out the smaller men from competition. It is said that the Government would get much better prices by resuming the old practice of selling by auction in reasonable lots. Whether this is so or not, there is no doubt that the Alexandrian trade suffers from the huge sales made upcountry. The collapse of that kind of banking which consisted in advances to the Government on usurious terms has also produced temporary stagnation. But Alexandria would probably do well to accept the new fashion, and the mass of brokers and merchants who are now struggling in vain to earn a living should seek their fortunes elsewhere. Although there is distress in the city from want of employment, there are signs of permanent improvement in the prosperity of the country.”Google Scholar

77 Owen, Cotton, pp. 324–25.Google Scholar

78 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 74–75.Google Scholar

79 The Times, 6 January 1876.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., 17 February 1876.

81 al-Jazayirli, Yusuf Fahmi Ahmad, Sikandariyyat (Alexandria, 1973), pp. 6–7. The author, an elderly civil servant of Alexandrian origin, provides a vivid description of the Turkish, Egyptian, and European residents of Muharram Bey, a posh section of Alexandria where lived, around the turn of the century, Prince 'Umar Tusun, the Ottoman representative in Egypt, and other wealthy members of Alexandria society.Google Scholar

82 Ibid., pp. 67–68. Italians and Greeks possessed a virtual monopoly on the production of certain kinds of foods; Greeks were, in particular, well represented in the ranks of grocers, bakers, and confectioners. Panzac estimates that, in 1897, 42 percent of the city's grocers were Greek (Panzac, “Alexandrie,” p. 211). Italians were much in demand in construction. At the same time, the figures provided by Mubarak show these same areas, i.e, local commerce, food processing, and construction, to have been the source of livelihood for a large number of the indigenous inhabitants. Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 74–75.Google Scholar

83 Ibid., 6 January 1876. “The native Egyptian is seldom a skilled artisan. That class is composed almost entirely of Greeks and Italians, but there is much labor done in the towns by Egyptians.”

84 Ibid., 11 September 1877.

85 Miège, “Algiers,” pp. 174–75.Google Scholar

86 Guillaume, X., “Saigon, or the Failure of an Ambition (1858–1945),” in Ross, and Telkamp, , eds., Colonial Cities, pp. 187–89.Google Scholar

87 For recent examinations of Egyptian cultural and educational development, see Delanoue, G., Moralistes er politiques musulmans dans l'Egypte du XIXe siècle, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1982);Google ScholarCrabbs, Jack A., The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cairo, 1984);Google Scholar'Awad, Luwis, al-Fikr almisri al-hadith (Cairo, 1986);Google Scholar and Jong, F. De, Turuq and Turuq-Linked Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Leiden, 1978).Google Scholar

88 Mubarak, al-Khitai, VII, 65–66.Google Scholar

89 Ibid., VII, 71.

90 al-Jazayirli, Sikandariyat, pp. 25–28.Google Scholar

91 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 69–70.Google Scholar

92 De Vaujany, Alexandrie, p. 121.Google Scholar

93 Ibid.

94 De Jong, Turuq, pp. 73–74, 76, 109, 111, 127, 150–51, 198.Google Scholar

95 Mubarak, al-Khitat, VII, 75.Google Scholar

96 Ibid., VII, 75–76.

97 The advances in education under Isma'il have been greatly overestimated by historians who have taken Egyptian government claims at face value. See Delanoue, Gilbert, “Réflexions et questions sur la politique scolaire des vice-rois réformateurs,” in L'Egypte au XIXe siècle (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1982), pp. 319–28.Google Scholar

98 The early editions of the paper include articles on international affairs, history, reports of cases before the Mixed Courts, news of various stock exchanges, local events, etc.Google Scholar

99 Crabbs, Writing of History, p. 188.Google Scholar

100 Ibid., p. 147.

101 al-Layl, Muhammad Najib Abu, al-Sihafa al-faransiyya fi Misr (Cairo, 1953), pp. 164–65.Google Scholar

102 The Times, 28 January 1870. A satiric picture is painted of this Europeanized Egyptian and his social marginality: “The evening dress of the Egyptian is a fez (tarboosh), white cravat, vest white or black, single-breasted black frock-coat with upright collar, and he is always white-gloved. The man of this type always speaks French, sometimes German, rarely English; he keeps high-trotting horses, a brougham with inside furniture for the Schoubra road, is a keen politician, and detests the Turk if he is not one himself, and will play his head off at écarte or baccarat. His manners are soft and sweet, and his words are honey, but it is exceedingly difficult to get him to do anything.”Google Scholar

103 Ibid., 1 November 1881, 26 October 1881.

104 See above or contemporary reports on the marginalization of the Egyptian urban middle classes. See The Times, 6 January 1876, 27 June 1877.Google Scholar

105 Abu 'Ayana, Sukkan al-Iskandariyya, pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

106 For the details, see De Vaujany, Alexandrie, pp. 125–38.Google Scholar

107 This is the verdict, for instance, of Holt, P. M., who may be said to represent mainstream Middle East historiography. With the following, cf. his Egypt and the Fertile Crescent 1516–1923 (Ithaca, 1966), pp. 211–16.Google Scholar For a more thorough and recent treatment using class analysis, see Schölch's, AlexanderEgypt for the Egyptians! The Sociopolitical Crisis in Egypt 1878–1882 (London, 1981).Google Scholar

108 The text of the Joint Note is given in Anderson, M. S., ed., The Great Powers and the Near East 1774–1923 (New York, 1970), pp. 115–16. After stating their support for the Khedive's authority as the only guarantee of good order, they go on to say: “The two Governments, being closely associated by their united efforts against all cause of complication … which might threaten the order of things in Egypt, do not doubt that lhc assurance publicly given of their formal intentions in this respect will tend to avert the dangers to which the Government of the Khedive might be exposed, and which would certainly find England and France united to oppose them.” A more complete misreading of the situation can scarcely be imagined.Google Scholar

109 On this point, cf.Baer, Gabriel, Social History, p. 196. The desire to claim in full the advantages of foreign residence in Egypt is epitomized in a booklet the Europeans composed with a view to obtaining indemnities for property damage occurring after the bombardment of 11 July 1882.Google Scholar See La question des indemnités. Mémoire aux puissances par le comité international (Alexandria, 1882), p. 7.Google Scholar

110 Translations of the Arabic press given in The Times include a description of England and France as “two carnivorous lions,” ready to gobble up the lands of the Middle East (8 November 1881).Google Scholar

111 Thus, the foreign consuls, who represented the European Communities, were seen by the Egyptians as so many “Lictors and Grand Inquisitors.” In cases of maltreatment of Europeans, the guilty were punished severely, and the aggrieved party would customarily apply to the Egyptian government for an indemnity as well. The Times, 5 June 1874.Google Scholar

112 De Vaujany, H., Histoire de L'Egypte depuis des temps les plus reculés jusqu'nos jours (Paris, 1885), p. 397.Google Scholar

113 The Anglo-French demand repeated the interests of the powers in terms that recall their Joint Note of 8 January: “Les gouvernements de France et de Grand-Bretagne, n'ont d'autre but, en intervenant dans les affaires d'Egypte, que de maintenir le statu quo et par suite de faire restitue au Khedive l'autorité qui lui appartient, et sans laquelle le statu quo est incessament menacé” Cited in Ibid, pp. 398–99.

114 Ibid., p. 400.

115 Al-Ahram, 3 June 1882.Google Scholar

116 De Vaujany, Alexandrie, pp. 126–32. The story, taken here from de Vaujany, has assumed various forms. Although there may be some confusion in the details, it is clear that this story in its essentials was circulating at a period very close to the events. Even if it is untrue in certain details, it is plausible precisely because of what has been said about the city's social evolution.Google Scholar

117 The Times, 30 June 1882.Google Scholar

118 De Vaujany, Alexandrie, p. 128.Google Scholar

119 Ibid., pp. 129–30.

120 Ibid., p. 131.

121 De Vaujany, Histoire de l'Egypte, p. 405.Google Scholar

122 Ross and Telkamp, eds., Colonial Cities, p. 6.Google Scholar