Egyptian nationalism hardened into racial contempt for the Sudan

Evidence

Shaykh al-Tahtawï inherited his view of the Sudan and its people, who not only were burdened with the ages-old stereotype of them as wild and savage but also were the subjects of many explorations and studies and were conceptualized as a subject people. He was the most politicized of the four voyagers of this study, because of his particularly energetic participation in Muhammad Alï's program of social reform for Egypt, and because of the perspectives about national community and identity that he gained from his experiences in France, which he promoted eloquently and forcefully in Egypt. From Paris, al-Tahtawï brought home a new lexicon to describe his own country, the most powerful being al-watan, his complicated word for the nation and its community and the bond that had to be forged between the two. His deep and abiding love for Egypt was rivaled only by his profound disgust with the Sudan and the Sudanese. His long poem about the Sudan imparts a kind of knowledge different from that shared by the other three voyagers. His master work, Manähij al-albäb al-misriya fï mabähij al-adäb al-`asriya, offers a more politicized sense of Egypt’s cultural geography. His particular poem about the Sudan and its people also demonstrates how the process of colonialism and nationalism came to be racialized, and how an increasing sense of racial difference could be incorporated into a sense of political and cultural boundaries. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 135

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature on how colonized elites internalize and re-deploy racial hierarchies against neighboring peoples (compare Said, and settler-colonial theories of the reader’s shelf). — connects to: Egyptian nationalists held a Janus-faced worldview of being colonized yet colonizing.; The founder of Egyptian nationalism despised Sudan yet deemed it vital to Egypt; Egyptian nationalism was defined against the Sudanese as racial other (+39 more)
• DEFINE: Introduces al-watan as al-Tahtawï’s imported nationalist lexicon term.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 135

Broader Connections

• Egyptian nationalists, however anti-colonial, retained racial prejudice against Sudanese #corroborates (0.85)
• Egyptian nationalism reproduced colonial racial hierarchy toward the Sudan internally #expands (0.80)
• Egyptian nationalists deployed racial stereotypes about Sudanese domestics #expands (0.55)
• Egyptian resentment stemmed from losing mastery over the Sudanese #expands (0.55)
• Egyptian nationalism imported from France became racialized against the Sudanese #qualifies (0.50) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 135
• Egyptian nationalism treated the Sudan as a proof of national virility #expands (0.40) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 726