Resisting colonial discourse using its own terms constitutes silent submission

Evidence

The speeches and writings of Kämil and his imitators shows an effort to twist through the narrow parameters by which civilization was gauged in the 1890s. But by using the measurements and instruments of the master, Kämil in important ways offered his submission to British hegemony. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 753

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with postcolonial theory — e.g. the trap of ‘talking back’ in the master’s language explored in Bhabha and others; also relates to how Egyptian nationalists both defied and internalized British standards. — connects to: Total language refusal can function as a critique of a whole social order — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 627; the MOC “The Word Is a Fence: Language as Battleground, Property, and Partition”
• DEEPTHINKING: Articulates a structural dilemma: oppositional discourse framed in the colonizer’s categories of ‘civilization’ reproduces hegemony even while contesting it. Relevant to how the reader distinguishes shades of coloniality between Egypt and Sudan.