Mehmed Ali staged his body as the law itself
Evidence
This is why Foucault said that one should see public, spectacular punishments as making up one side of the equation of rituals of power; the other is made up of rituals in which the Sovereign spectacularly portrays his body in its magnificent glory in front of his subjects, e.g. coronations, submission of rebellious subjects, entering conquered cities, etc. Mehmed Ali was aware of the power that these rituals had and, as was shown in the manner he received European visitors, he used his own body as the focal point of these rituals to express the juridical aspect of his political power. That his body was the law and hence was central and essential for the maintenance of order in the realm, and, in contrast, that the body of the criminal was to be used to remind people not only of its redundancy and its expendability, but also of the central importance of Mehmed Ali’s body, is what lies behind a lot of the spectacular punishments that were carried out in the streets and squares of Cairo. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 676
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Foucault’s two poles of power ritual; ties to the reader’s sacrifice article on sacral kingship.
Related
- Mehmed Ali used bodily spectacle to enact his juridical power over subjects. (similarity 0.96)
- Corporal punishment under Mehmed Ali was a sovereign prerogative (similarity 0.80)
- Sovereign power was recharged only through visible spectacle (similarity 0.79)
- A mystique of personal omnipotence shielded Mehmed Ali so he could drop formal ceremony (similarity 0.79)
- Mehmed Ali adopted hidden disciplinary power to make rule tolerable, not humane (similarity 0.79)
- Physical limits of Mehmed Ali’s presence drove creation of bureaucratic substitutes to represent him. (similarity 0.79)