Suez Canal

A man-made waterway in Egypt connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, opened in 1869, which dramatically shortened the sea route between Europe and Asia and played a transformative role in imperialism and global commerce. In these claims it is used as a symbolic and historical reference point for European colonial ambition and instrumental/mechanical approaches to conquest and engineering.

Claims that use this term

• The Suez Canal completed the Orient’s transformation from hostile distance into submissive possession
• The Suez Canal engineering parallels the Holocaust’s lethal bureaucratic finality.