An Egyptian elite defined itself against the poor through a British-imposed sense of order

Evidence

The author’s own class – those who worked for the prosperity of the community in commerce, agriculture, and manufacturing (to be distinguished from the old aristocracy, he explained, who lived off income from property, emoluments, or inheritance), together with those who worked as scholars and writers – were set apart from all this by their sense of ‘order’. They were not afflicted with the indolence found among the poor and even the very rich. This, the book emphasised, was thanks to the order introduced by the British, which had given them self-confidence and initiative in their affairs. The order stood in contrast to the chaos caused by the Urabi revolution that had preceded the British occupation of the country. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 380

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ theme — class/identity signaling through moral categories; also echoes the missionary narrative of British order rescuing Egypt from chaos that runs through colonial accounts.