Egypt’s 1881 nationalists framed power seizure as national education, not revolution

Evidence

The vocabulary and thinking of the nationalist leadership was reflected in Eight Words. Addressing the political crisis as a crisis found in the misuse and misunderstanding of words, the book’s major theme was the need for the authority and discipline of a national system of education. Colonel Urabi’s own ideas concerning ‘political matters’ had first been formed from reading about the military training of the French and the manner in which they were ‘drilled and organised’, and in their manifesto of 1881 the nationalist leaders declared that the aim of the Egyptian people was ‘to complete their national education’. This they sought to achieve by means of a parliament, the press, and the spread of schooling, adding in the manifesto that ‘none of these means of education can be secured except by the firm attitude of national leaders’. Thus the nationalists seized power in October 1881 not so much in the name of revolution as in the name of Egypt’s ‘national education’. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 419

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of education as a technology of state power, echoing how nationalists use schooling to build the nation-state.