Court-martial records silence soldiers rather than recover their authentic voice

Evidence

The records of the court martial, therefore, that most precious source through which one would expect to get as close as possible to capturing the voice of the illiterate soldier, turn out to be a means of silencing him and of incorporating him within the power structure that he was resisting. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1696

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely counterintuitive methodological insight: the archival sources nearest a subaltern voice are themselves instruments of power that muffle it.
• QUESTION: Are there any Egyptian soldier letters, petitions, or diaries outside court records that survive from this period?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1696