Conscripts resisted the army through small everyday acts of defiance

Evidence

By highlighting the small acts of defiance and resistance undertaken by the soldiers in this army, the intention is to undermine the impressive representations of power and its unceasing desire to silence its subjects. These small, every-day acts of resistance, while not grand or heroic, were still effective in challenging the attempts of power to control and manipulate the soldiers’ lives and bodies, and alarmed the military authorities precisely by showing them that, through these small acts of resistance the soldiers managed to distance themselves from the Pasha and his grand projects. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 20