Lane’s 1830s ethnography catalogued Egyptian vices to justify colonial labour discipline

Evidence

Lane’s book included successive chapters on ‘Character’, ‘Industry’ and ‘Use of tobacco, coffee, hemp, opium, etc.’. These pages described how ‘indolence pervades all classes of the Egyptians, except those who are obliged to earn their livelihood by severe manual labour’ and how ‘even the mechanics [manual labourers], who are extremely greedy of gain, will generally spend two days in a work which they might easily accomplish in one’; how Egyptians ‘are extremely obstinate and difficult to govern’ and ‘have been notorious from ancient times … for refusing to pay their taxes until they have been severely beaten’; how ‘it is seldom that an Egyptian worker can be induced to make a thing exactly to order: he will generally follow his own opinion in preference to that of his employer; and will scarcely ever finish his work by the time he has promised’; how ‘in sensuality, as far as it relates to the indulgence of libidinous passions, the Egyptians, as well as other natives of hot climates, certainly exceed more northern nations’; and finally, how the immoderate addiction of Egyptians to tobacco, coffee, hashish and opium had made them still ‘more inactive than they were in earlier times, leading them to waste … many hours which might be profitably employed’. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 345

Categorization

• SHARE: The specific quote that Egyptian workers ‘will scarcely ever finish their work by the time he has promised’ — a tiny historical bite about 1830s Egyptian work culture for a labor-history friend.
• CANDY: The detail that a founding ethnography of the Middle East paired chapters on ‘Industry’ with ‘Use of tobacco, coffee, hemp, opium’ is a neat, compact fact.