Fawzï reclaimed his Mahdist imprisonment dress as proof of rank.

Evidence

Fawzï’s self-conscious self-display—clothing himself in what had been the dress of humiliation as an emblem of historical evidence and proof of position, and staging his imprisonment as if for an exhibition on the exotic Sudan in the Geographical Society halls—recurred, with even more spectacle, in Kitäb al-südän bayna aydï Gordon wa Kitchener. Proving his rank and worth motivated Fawzï Pasha’s orchestration of the details of his career, but his experiences in the Sudan, with the Sudanese, shaped the greater part of his self-esteem and certainly his cultural pride. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 572

Categorization

• QUESTION: The bizarreness of staging one’s own humiliation as theater invites further reading on self-orientalizing.