Egyptian resentment of Ottoman superiority was channeled through sympathy for Nubian characters

Evidence

This same intimate comprehension and exchange of meanings is responsible for the resonance of these Sudanese characters for both Sanüa and his audience.Abü Rida, however lovable, is replete with tics that identify him to the audience as a familiar, but non-Egyptian, prop in Egyptian life. If Cole's formulation about the communicative patterns between writer and audience are correct, then perhaps Sanüa was articulating native Egyptians’ anger at Ottoman Egyptians’ assumptions of superiority, which would mean that, on some level, they would sympathize with Abü Rida. On another level, Banbah would be speaking for them in her assertion of Egyptians’ rights to be just as lordly as Circassians. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 379

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature on how colonial/peripheral subjects project their own subordination onto lower-status groups.