Elite Egyptian writers pathologized the café as a source of disease and social disorder

Evidence

The café in Cairo is a place where the rabble gathers … in a space so confined that its occupants are almost overcome by the fumes that rise from the stoves and the smoke of the pipes and nargilehs; so that a person who walks in feels he has entered a burning fire, or the cramped confines of a prison. It is the source of numerous infections and diseases, and a refuge for the unemployed and the indolent, particularly in those places known for the consumption of hashish. The only thing one hears once inside are words repugnant to the ear and offensive to one’s nature. The place is a scene of continual arguments and fights. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 375 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Elite Egyptian writers framed cafés as infected dens of idleness and vice — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 375; Egyptian moralists medicalized poverty as diagnosable social disorder in 1902 — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 376

Broader Connections

• Elite Egyptian writers framed cafés as infected dens of idleness and vice #expands (0.97) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 375