Uncommunicative Communication: Competing Egyptian, Ottoman and British Imperial Ventures in 19th-Century Egypt

Abstract

The contribution “Uncommunicative Communication: Competing Egyptian, Ottoman and British Notions of Imperial Order in 19th-Century Egypt” by Maurus Reinkowski (University of Basel) sees Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th century as a particularly illustrative case of competing imperial ventures, in particular of the Egyptian, Ottoman and British states. Whereas the Egyptian imperial venture, prominent under Muḥammad ʿAlī in the 1820s and 1830s and revived under Ismāʿīl (r. 1863–1879) in the early 1870s, quickly degenerates into bankruptcy and finally British occupation from 1882 onwards, the Ottoman-British imperial competition continues until 1914. A particularly colorful example of how the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain – in the way of uncommunicative communication – strived to maintain respectively to enforce their notion of an appropriate imperial order is to compare of Aḥmed Muḫtār Paşa and Lord Cromer. Aḥmed Muḫtār, a high-ranking Ottoman officer, was sent in 1885 as Extraordinary Commissioner to Cairo, where he stayed until 1908. Muḫtār’s semi-exile in Cairo was characterized by factual powerlessness as he was completely overshadowed by Sir Evelyn Baring, the British consul general who was the factual ruler of Egypt between 1882 and 1907. Starting from the assumption that Aḥmed Muḫtār’s status in Egypt does not only reflect his personal isolation, but also the precarious imperial status of the Ottoman Empire, this paper examines Aḥmed Muḫtār’s presence and politics in Cairo as a case of both personal self-reassurance and imperial self-representation.