Egyptian villagers resisted vaccination fearing it marked children for conscription

Evidence

The resistance of the soldiers to these regular medical check-ups was mirrored in the larger society by the civilians’ resistance to vaccination. What appears to have been a policy which intended their own benefit and well-being, vaccination was seen by peasants and city folk alike as yet another way of marking their children for conscription. The authorities appear to have made no effort to overcome their expected resistance by enlisting the support of the village shaykhs or the shaykhs of the quarters, for example. The villagers did everything possible to resist vaccinating their sons; they fled from the doctors, hid their sons, attacked the barber-vaccinators, bribed the local officials to leave their children unmarked, and forged vaccination certificates. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1086 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

More seriously, many fellahin went as far as maiming themselves in the hope that they might be declared medically unfit for service in the army. Initially, the most common way of maiming was to remove the front teeth in order to be deemed incapable of loading the muskets. However, when Mehmed Ali was informed that a lot of men in Upper Egypt had resorted to this habit, he said that since the training manuals did not specify which teeth should be used in loading the musket, these men could use other teeth and should therefore be conscripted. Other ways of maiming were more dangerous and resulted in serious bodily harm. One such method resorted to by the fellahin was to blind themselves by putting rat poison in their eyes. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1306 (#expands, via linked claim)

The problem with this argument insofar as it pertains to the army, besides the obvious one of lumping together the entire rural population of Egypt under the general rubric of “fellahin,” is that the population of Egypt, far from enthusiastically flocking to serve in the army, was in fact very resentful of military service and strongly resisted serving in the army. Recognizing that the scale of this resistance was alarming, that it was not localized but was widespread throughout Egypt, and that the rural population went out of their way to make this resistance obvious, it is still commonplace to argue that this was only a temporary reaction caused above all by “the fellah’s strong attachment to his land and the unfamiliarity of military life to him.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 41 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Egyptian peasants saw vaccination as a conscription mark and resisted violently (similarity 0.91)
• Egyptian peasants blinded and mutilated themselves to evade conscription. (similarity 0.85)
• Egyptian peasants maimed themselves to escape conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.83)
• Egyptian peasants overwhelmingly resisted conscription despite ideological appeals, via open rebellion (similarity 0.83)
• Hospitalized Egyptian soldiers violently resisted medical authority. (similarity 0.82)
• Fellahin resistance to Mehmed Ali’s conscription was pervasive. (similarity 0.82)
• Village shaykhs held the local knowledge conscription depended on and often refused to cooperate. (similarity 0.81)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army (similarity 0.81)
• Egyptian peasants universally hated conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian conscripts resisted the Pasha’s army through desertion and self-mutilation (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army. (similarity 0.80)
• Over 30,000 Egyptians rebelled against Mehmed Ali’s conscription in 1824 (similarity 0.79)
• Egyptian peasants experienced conscription as oppressive taxation rather than patriotic service (similarity 0.79)
• Conscription drove Egyptian peasants to refuse marriage and childbearing (similarity 0.79)
• Egyptian peasants mutilated themselves to dodge conscription yet were drafted anyway. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Peasants resisted vaccination fearing it marked sons for conscription. #corroborates (0.95) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1086
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army #expands (0.80) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 41
• Egyptian peasants blinded and mutilated themselves to evade conscription. #expands (0.80) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1306
• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into Mehmed Ali’s army. #expands (0.75) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 92
• Egyptian peasants experienced conscription as oppressive taxation rather than patriotic service #expands (0.60) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1670