Egyptian peasants mutilated themselves to escape conscription despite brutal punishment

Evidence

Despite such examples, peasants continued to desert their lands; and those sent for military service would mutilate themselves to avoid conscription. ‘Some draw their teeth, some blind themselves, and others maim themselves, on their way to us,’ complained the Governor of Egypt in a circular to his district officials issued in March 1833, ‘and for this reason we send back the greater part … I will take from the family of every such offender men in his place, and he who has maimed himself shall be sent to the galleys all his life; I have already ordered this to the Sheiks in writing.’ The weaknesses of the military order are evident from the increasing severity of its methods of conscription, which began to rival those of Europe in their brutality. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 154

Categorization

• CANDY: Peasants drawing their own teeth and blinding themselves to dodge the draft is a grim, vivid fact worth sharing with anyone interested in Egypt or coercion.
• XREF: Connects to coercion economics and the extreme lengths people go to escape state extraction.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 154