Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day

That which of all things had been most needed to facilitate the regeneration of the country that England had undertaken had been the appreciative co-operation of the people. The vast benefits the occupation had conferred and the reconquest of the Soudan had been all insufficient to gain this co-operation, and had it not been for the Fachoda incident forcing a solution of the problem of English supremacy in Egypt it would still be lacking. As it is, however defective the assistance now accorded may be, its deficiencies are due to causes not arising from either hostility to English influence or the fear of its cessation.

From the landing of Bonaparte in July, 1798, down to the departure of the French expedition from Fachoda in December, 1898, just five months more than a century later, no single occurrence in the history of the country has had such deep and, as it will assuredly prove, lasting influence as this latter, for it wrought in a day what all the might of England and the devoted labours of the English in Egypt could never have accomplished. The English occupation is and will for ever remain the chief landmark in the story of modern Egypt. The happy conclusion of the Fachoda incident was not only its ratification as such but the birthday of a new era. Since that day the Egyptians have had new hopes and ambitions. All their aspirations have been turned into new channels. No longer harassed by hesitating doubts as to which of two courses it were wiser for them to take, they now enjoy a degree of political and social liberty such as was never before within their reach, for, no longer dependent upon the uncertain favour of despotic masters, the Egyptian of to-day is as free to pursue his individual course as any native of the freest countries of the world. As, therefore, the landing of Bonaparte in 1798 was the early dawn of the new era in the history of the people, the evacuation of Fachoda has been its sunburst.

CHAPTER XVIII
HEALTHY INFLUENCES

Though the outline I have given of the history of Egypt under Mahomed Ali and his successors has been of the briefest, it is sufficient for the purpose of this volume. It would no doubt be a study of great interest to see in some detail how the varying characters and actions of their rulers and the events these gave rise to affected the people, but the effects thus produced have proved for the most part of a purely temporary nature, and have been of such conflicting characters that without a very elaborate study it would be well-nigh impossible to trace their influence upon the Egyptian of to-day. Fortunately for my reader's patience, what we have to do with is the influences that, broad and general in their results, have also been lasting and are therefore still in operation, and just as we may appreciate the force and volume of the mighty Mississippi without studying, as Mark Twain and his brother pilots had need to do, its ever-varying currents and eddies, its snags and snarls, so we may learn the strength and tendency of Egyptian opinion without stopping to analyse all the incidents that have helped or hindered its development.

As I have said in my last chapter, the full development of the Egyptian character dates only from the evacuation of Fachoda. As yet, indeed, the people have taken nothing more than the very first steps towards the adoption of a definite and clearly shaped policy such as can alone give them a truly national and distinctive character. During the whole of the past century, beaten hither and thither by fluctuating influences and impulses, the constant uncertainty that overhung their future reacted upon their thoughts and rendered these as unstable as the events by which they were stirred, but since the commencement of the English occupation influences have been at work with steadily growing effect consolidating and directing the thoughts and aspirations of the whole body of the people and gradually creating a true public opinion such as has never before existed. These influences have been but three in number – the increased acquaintance of the people with European civilisation, their increased knowledge of the social and political condition of the Mahomedan countries of the world, and the development of the Arabic Press.

Except in so far as it has contributed to the strengthening and enlarging of these influences through the facilities it has afforded for their operation, the English administration of the country has had but little effect upon its political or mental development as a nation, although upon the personal character of the people, that is to say upon the people as individuals, it has had a much greater and stronger effect than either the English or the Egyptians realise. The young Egyptian who has grown up under English rule is of altogether a different type to that which his father was. Whether of the highest or of the lowest rank, he has a conception of his personal rights and responsibilities that places him socially and politically upon a totally different plane to that of his elders. The general effect thus produced is that he is more self-reliant, more independent, and less willing to submit to restraint of any kind than was his father. That this change is the source of some evil is as certain as natural, but that on the whole it is a change for the better, and one tending to the elevation of the people, is equally certain. Eventually it must have a powerful influence upon the political feeling of the country. As yet those who are most strongly affected by it are for the most part too young to have any very definite or influential place in the political affairs of the country, but they are gradually swelling the ranks of the journalists, and in but a few years will be the men in whose hands will be gathered most of the strings by which the people at large are likely to be most strongly moved. Of all the tasks, therefore, that the Government of the country and those responsible for it are called upon to perform, if they would ensure the future stability of the present prosperity and the real welfare of the people, there is none more important than that of endeavouring by every legitimate and possible means to guide the development of this change into healthy and vigorous directions.

Joined with that loyalty to Islam and the Turkish Empire I have shown to be dominant forces in the country, the three influences I have just described are those which are to-day, and must be for long to come, the real controlling influences in the political and social growth of the Egyptians. It is conceivable, of course, that events might possibly arise to divert, nullify, or even destroy the effects of one or more of these influences; but this is a contingency so remote and so little likely to occur that it is needless to discuss it here. It will be well, however, for us to see a little more of the nature and effect of these influences as they actually exist.

That these influences have been healthy will have been gathered from what I have already said of them, but it is necessary to show in what way and how far they have been so. First, then, let us see what has been the effect of the increased acquaintance of the people with European civilisation. Omitting all consideration of such minor effects as the adoption of changes in dress, in the furnishing of their houses and other details of their daily life, the effect that is most potent for good is one that goes much deeper and further than such merely superficial matters as these. This effect is the constantly increasing desire for the improvement of the social and political conditions that prevail. Keenly awakened to a sense of the deficiencies from which they have suffered in the past, the people are more and more being influenced by the wish and the will for self-improvement. As yet, however, their views are but vague and indefinite, and lie rather in the direction of ambitious dreams than of purpose-giving aspirations. But though they are eager, rather than emulous, to be regarded as the intellectual equals of the European peoples, it is certain that this desire is at least one of the most powerful of the impulses by which the life of the nation is being stirred.

As we have seen, Mahomed Ali, though a Moslem and a native of Turkey, was essentially a European. His knowledge of and sympathy with Islamic ideals were of the slightest. Familiar as he necessarily was with Oriental thought and life, the Egyptian and Arab were to him more alien than the Western Europeans. Hence his love of European society, his passion for innovation on European lines, and his frequent sacrifice of Mahomedan sentiment to European utilitarianism. All that was best in the man was strikingly European in type and character, all that was bad was eminently Oriental. Had he had such advantages of early education and such surroundings as Bonaparte had had, he would in all probability, nay, certainly, have proved a really great man, a man of high ambitions and great if not glorious achievements. As it was, hampered by the want of the most elementary education, cramped in aspiration by the narrowness of his experience, and with a mind vitiated by the false ideals of those amidst whom he was reared and lived and by the evils of the only political system he had any knowledge of, it is not surprising that his rapid rise quickly brought him to a point at which he became the victim rather than the ruler of affairs. His personal influence with the people was but small, for the popularity that led them to choose him as their Governor did not long stand the strains he placed upon it, and in carrying out his schemes for the Europeanising of the country he met with more opposition than approval and failed to awaken any desire for the change he was so anxious to bring about. He succeeded, indeed, in rendering the people more familiar with European thought and ideals than they had been, and thus set in motion the current of thought that is to-day leading the Egyptian to look to the West for his standard of social and political life. As we have seen, the people had been quite ready and willing to adopt all that they found good in the methods of the French, and now that Frenchmen and other Europeans came amongst them, not as conquerors and dictators, but as the guests and friends of a Moslem Governor, they were much more willing to hear their views and profit from their advice and instruction. The good results that might have sprung from this cause were, however, very largely barred by the spirit of opposition created by Mahomed Ali's attempts to force the adoption of unwelcome innovations. It was therefore rather in spite, than in consequence of his European tendencies that during his reign the Egyptians began to have a clearer conception of and more friendly feelings towards European civilisation as a whole. Under the French, with all the faults of their administration, a conviction had spread in favour of the advantages of a regularly constituted and properly organised government, and with this had also come the recognition of the principle that it should be the aim of a government to protect the interests of the people, and that it was for the good of all that the various classes should be treated with equity. These are things taught indeed as part of the law of Islam, but they were parts of that law of which the people had had no practical experience, and the discovery they had thus made that Christian nations and peoples could and did hold out as ideals, and still more, to a certain extent bring into actual practice the teachings of the Moslem faith, awakened in them a new interest in the civilisation to which they had so long felt the most irreconcilable hostility. It was under the French that these thoughts first began to impress the people. Under Mahomed Ali they were extended and grew more familiar, but still, hindered and checked by the unfavourable conditions that encompassed them, they made but little substantial progress. Yet, in defiance of all difficulties, they took solid root, and when later on, under the successors of Mahomed Ali, they were presented under a more favourable aspect, they began to sway even the classes that had at first most strenuously opposed them.

The steady growth of the desire for reform that has thus gone on from the time of the French invasion, has been almost entirely spontaneous. It has sprung, as I have said, from the increased acquaintance of the people with European ideals brought about by the presence of Europeans in their country, but this presence, which has been the chief cause of the progress made, has at the same time been the greatest obstacle in the way of that progress. To the present day this is so. All that is reactionary in the spirit of the country to-day is almost wholly and directly due to the presence of Europeans in it, and the consequences entailed by that presence. Again and again have I heard some enthusiastic advocate of progress and reform silenced and put to shame by some quietly made allusion to some of the evils nurtured by the European Consulates, or some of the anti-Islamic laxities, the presence of Europeans, and the political influence they possess, force upon the people. This is indeed the great hindrance to progress, the drag that stops the Egyptian from advancing as he might and could. Yet, in spite of all difficulties, that which is really good in the intercourse of the two peoples is bearing fruit. Of necessity the first produce of the new feelings, thoughts, and aspirations, stirring to activity the long latent abilities of the people, has been little more than a few weak saplings of progress, too frail and immature to send forth aught more than a few fragile blossoms; but the crop is thriving, and though as yet rich in neither quality nor quantity, it is the fair promise of a sound, healthy, and abundant harvest to come. It was not until the first half of the nineteenth century had passed that the appreciation of European civilisation became at all general; it is to-day almost universal. Nor is it less powerful for good that it appeals to various classes with varying aspects. To many it is no doubt nothing more than an appreciation of the physical advantages offered to the individual by railways, electric tramways, telegraphs, and telephones, and the hundreds of other minor inventions that add to the pleasure or tend to the comfort or convenience of life; to others it is the higher side of civilisation, its intellectual and social advantages that appeal most forcibly, but these are at the same time appalled and repelled by its evils, and thus the very men that it is most desirable should be most strongly influenced are held back from accepting much that they would otherwise welcome. And these men, while always candid and open in their intercourse with Europeans in the expression of their sense of the merits of European civilisation, and of the backward condition of their own countrymen, are withheld, by their fear of appearing discourteous or offensive, from even hinting at their perception of its evils. Thus, left in ignorance of one of the chief reasons why the Egyptian does not more enthusiastically adopt and practise that which he so freely commends, Europeans are wrongly led to believe that the appreciation he expresses is not sincere. It is not so. He thoroughly comprehends the advantages he commends, but at the same time he sees clearly enough, what most strangely the European seems incapable of perceiving, that the unrestricted adoption of Western standards could not fail to set loose a flood of evils far outweighing all the benefits it could confer. Hence at the present day the problem that of all others attracts discussion in native circles in Egypt is, How may we secure the benefits, without incurring the evils of European civilisation?

This, then, is the net result of a century of almost daily increasing acquaintance with the people of Europe and the civilisation of which they boast. It is a problem that many earnest men are studying in various parts of the Mahomedan world, and which is tending to solve itself by slow but yet perceptible steps. In Egypt the most hopeful feature of the difficulty to be faced is, that no one appreciates the need of reform more than, or indeed as much as, the Egyptian himself. Fortunately he is by no means inclined to accept too hastily the often ill-considered advice Europeans are prone to give him, for he can see, as they cannot, the real difficulties to be overcome. Rightly comprehended, then, the very slowness of the progress being made, so far from being discouraging or to the discredit of the Egyptians is quite otherwise, for it shows that the advance being made is sure and well-grounded, and not a mere passing impulse, and it is a guarantee that all further progress will be well-considered and deliberate, and will thus be certain of producing more enduring benefit than any hastily adopted reforms, however brilliant their first effects might seem to be, would be likely to secure.

Directly connected with the healthy influence which is thus at work in Egypt and other parts of the East is another of a very different character in some respects, but tending in exactly the same direction – the elevation of the moral, social, and political standards of the peoples affected by it. It is, however, of much more recent origin, for it was not until after the English occupation that the Egyptians, profiting from their increased intercourse with Europeans, and the development of the native Press, of which they are such avid readers, began to give attention to the condition of Islam outside the narrow limits of the Ottoman Empire. To the present day the fellaheen indeed are indisposed to credit the fact that a majority of the Moslems of to-day are not only not subjects of the Turkish Sultan but do not speak either the Arabic or Turkish language. Naturally the English occupation turned the attention of the more enlightened classes to the question of England's relations with her Mahomedan subjects in India and elsewhere. Their conception of those relations were at first drawn from uncertain and most unreliable sources, and were scarcely less accurate than unfavourable. Thanks mainly and directly to the honesty of the Moayyad, the leading Mahomedan journal of the country, the ignorance that formerly existed has largely disappeared, and the news-reading public are now able to follow the progress of events in India and other Moslem lands with a fair knowledge of the circumstances affecting them.

The interest thus excited in the affairs of their brother Mahomedans in other lands is steadily increasing, and this has led the Arabic journals to pay special attention to all that appears in the European Press with reference to any matter in which Moslems are concerned. The outcome of this is clearly marked. The Egyptians no longer regard their country as they did a few years ago, as an isolated unit, but see it as part of a great whole of which it is its right and privilege to be the head. And with this increased knowledge of the Islamic world has grown side by side an increased knowledge of the condition of the European nations and more particularly of the Great Powers. Throughout Islam it is now recognised that if these Powers are no longer inclined to enter upon crusades against the Moslem states it is not from any enlarged tolerance for Islam nor from any peace-decreeing doctrines of Christianity or civilisation, but because they are restrained by the political conditions controlling their relations with each other. This is a matter on which it is no use saying smooth things that have no basis of actual fact. There is not a single Mahomedan in any part of the world who believes any of the many protestations of friendship for Islam made by nations or peoples or governments. That these professions are genuine enough for the moment, that they are not based upon either falsehood or dishonesty of intention is not asserted. Under existing conditions they are honest and true enough, but they depend wholly upon the continuance of those conditions. Side by side with the growth of this knowledge and the diffusion of the ideas to which it gives rise, there has been a similar increase in the knowledge that the various Moslem peoples have of each other and a growing perception of the causes that have led to the decadence of Islam. Of these latter, as every student of history knows, the two principal have been disunion among the Mahomedan peoples and the stagnation of social and intellectual progress that followed the overthrow of the political power of Islam. The recognition of these facts by the Moslems themselves has pointed them directly to the obvious remedy – the reunion of Islam and the development of the social and intellectual capacities of its peoples. Hence the rise of that Pan-Islamism which has of late been so much discussed and is as yet so completely misunderstood in Europe and by Europeans living in the East.

The journalism of to-day is a very different thing to that of the past. Its writers are for the most part young men of the day essentially out of touch with the days of their fathers. Whence we find them presenting to us as novelties ideas that were familiar to all newspaper readers of the last generation and asking us to solve problems that we had thought buried with our grandfathers. But in the modern craze for rush and hurry and inefficiency the public have no time to stop to inquire the history of the topics brought before them. To some extent conscious of this defect in themselves and others, the modern journalist turns to the first comer who can show any pretence of special knowledge on any subject of the day and, accepting him at his own valuation, takes him as an expert and builds up his own theories and speculations on his authority. Thus the Cook-conducted tourist who rushes through Egypt and the East without ever exchanging a word with any native, save perhaps Cook's dragoman or donkey-boy, is invited to give his ideas on the "Egyptian Question" and so forth, and in doing so very often quotes as an authority some European who has been living in the country for heaven only knows how many years, and who, if the truth were known, knows scarcely less of the people than the tourist himself, since all that he has gained by his years of residence has been the accumulation of a number of prejudices which are to him the explanation of all things touching the past, present, or future of the land and its peoples. If the blind thus lead the blind whither can their progress tend? As an answer look at the recent comments upon Pan-Islamism in the European Press. Journals that years ago spoke of Pan-Islamism as an idea full of lofty promise for the future, not of Islam only but of the world, have taken it up as a new subject, treated it as a new movement, and hastened to point out that it is a menace to civilisation. Some thirty years have passed since Lord Beaconsfield, speaking as the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Guildhall dinner in London, drew a brilliant picture of the effects that might spring from the regeneration of Islam under the protection and with the aid of England. His speech created a world-wide interest, but, as I pointed out in the Bombay Gazette of the time, I had previously drawn attention to the same idea, and I was thus one of the first, if not the very first, to discuss the subject in an English newspaper. In India and in England, after filling the public mind for a brief space of time, the subject was dropped and the truly Imperial views of Lord Beaconsfield were relegated to a pigeon-hole in the Foreign Office, where, if the rats have not yet devoured them, they are probably still lying. But if England thus neglected the idea that as the Globe, if I am not betrayed by memory, described as the offspring of a "stupendous intellect," it was not so with the statesmen of other countries, and from that day to this more than one of the Foreign Offices of Europe has not lost sight of the subject, needless to say, not with any intention of promoting the views of Lord Beaconsfield. Nor among Moslem peoples has the subject ever been dropped. The yearly increasing facility of travelling in the East and the growth of the Arabic and Indian Mahomedan Press, have naturally tended to help forward the efforts of the more enlightened Moslems in various lands who were first stirred to movement by the discussion in the European Press, and to-day wherever Islam exists there is a Pan-Islamic party, generally small, but always having as its leaders the most enlightened and most advanced men. Under the guidance of these men Pan-Islamism is essentially a defensive and not an aggressive movement – one for the elevation of the people, and therefore an intellectual and peace-promoting and not a military or war-provoking one. That a few of the most ignorant of the people should attach some hazy idea of Moslem conquest to their conception of Pan-Islamism is but natural, but to assume that because their vague, ill-formed, and wholly undigested thoughts now and then find expression in the columns of irresponsible journals, run for the most part by men of no position, education, or influence, these are to be taken as the true exponents of Moslem thought is absurd. Instead of being a danger to Europe or civilisation Pan-Islamism is a movement that should have the support of every lover of peace and civilisation, and the fact that it is making progress in Egypt is but a proof that the Egyptians have awakened to a sense of the only way in which the best and truest interests of their country and their religion can be served. If the world at large is ever to see that higher and truer civilisation of which it is capable, the Powers must abandon that lust of conquest that is but a drag on all true progress, they must cease to look upon the interest of each as a claim to which the interests of all others must yield, and combine to seek the benefit of all. The more nearly that ideal is reached the more important will it be that Islam should be prepared to take its fitting place in the grand scheme of regeneration. That it should do so it must follow now and for ever the ideas that are the mainspring of Pan-Islamism.

The third and last of the healthy influences I have named is the development of the Arabic Press. Were we to consider merely the number of years the occupation has lasted, it might seem reasonable to suppose that it has been the most powerful of all the influences affecting the general character of the people, but, as I have pointed out in the last chapter, it was not until after the evacuation of Fachoda that it had any really solid or lasting effect. Prior to that event the Egyptians had undoubtedly learned to appreciate the principles illustrated in the administration of the country by the English, but the uncertainty that overhung the future prevented even the warmest admirers and advocates of English methods taking up a strong or definite position in their favour. During the earlier part of the occupation which as yet has been by far the longest, the greatest benefit conferred upon the Egyptians was therefore the freedom it gave them to profit from the influences with which I have already dealt. When the change came it found the great majority of the people ready and willing to accept the friendship and guidance of England, and the strength and honesty of this feeling was clearly visible in their attitude during the disastrous opening of the South African War which followed so soon after. While the Armenians openly and offensively rejoiced at every fresh telegram of disaster and defeat, the Egyptians not only preserved in public the calm they had shown during the Fachoda incident, but among themselves were not slow in expressing sympathy. The reactionary party and some of the lower classes were, perhaps not unnaturally, pleased to see English pride humbled, but the one and only class that really rejoiced at the humiliation was, as I have said, the Christian Armenians. Among Pan-Islamic circles there was a sincere wish for the triumph of the English, for these knew that the interests of the Moslems of South Africa were bound up with theirs, and that though the Moslems had many just grounds of complaint against the treatment accorded them by the colonists, and the lack of protection afforded them by the Home Government, they knew that the tyranny of the colonist was, after all, better than the friendship of the Boer. In this view the majority of the people shared, and though the reactionary Press thought it good policy to profess a desire for the collapse of British rule, and to laud the Boers as heroes fighting for liberty and so forth, they knew well enough that the Boers would have laughed to scorn any idea of granting social or political freedom or equality to any Egyptian, or Mahomedan, however high his rank.

Under the Mamaluks, as we have seen, contrary to the commonly held idea that the people dare not even protest against the injustices by which they were oppressed, it was no unusual thing for them to do so, and if they did not profit more from the power of resistance they possessed, it was because they were too indifferent to, or too ignorant of, their own interests to defend these as they might have done. Under Mahomed Ali and his successors they were not only tongue-tied, but enslaved in a far worse manner than they had ever been by the Mamaluks. Under the English they have enjoyed the most perfect liberty of speech – a liberty that is only slowly subjecting itself to the self-restraint that alone can render it as serviceable to their true interests as it ought to be. It was but natural therefore that the Press, for a large part written and conducted by men of no position or influence, and actuated by no higher desire than to gain the momentary applause of their readers, should put the Eatanswill Gazette to shame in its own particular line, and that the folly and ineptitude of its articles should make the Egyptians ridiculous in the eyes of all intelligent people. But these are the faults of youth and inexperience and lack of education, and are largely due to the bad example of European papers of little if any higher merit. Slowly but steadily the Egyptian Press has moved, and is still moving, towards a worthier standard, and the fact that its movement is a spontaneous and voluntary one is an incontestable proof that the Egyptians are a people not only capable of, but anxious for, self-improvement, and a people entirely deserving of liberty. It is a maxim in mechanics that the weakest link in a chain is a measure of the strength of the whole. Of the newspaper Press of a country I think it may be said that its strength and merit are to be judged by its best. So judged we cannot but think well of the Egyptian Press. That the liberty accorded to it is still abused by journals on a par with the lowest type of journalism in Europe is to be regretted. It is an evil that will eventually cure itself. Meanwhile the liberty granted to the Press has undoubtedly been the chief boon conferred by England upon the country. It is a gift that has done more to educate and elevate the people and promote healthy progress than all else, or aught else, that has been done for the attainment of these ends. Slowly but surely it is doing the great work accomplished in England mainly through the establishment of Sunday and "Ragged" Schools – the raising of the intellectual standard of the people, the formation and nurturing of healthy ambitions, and the creation of a higher and purer conception of all the relations of life. All that England has done for the financial, commercial, and general material welfare of the country and of its inhabitants, almost immeasurably great and good as this work has been, is but a trifle to the results that may ultimately spring directly from the liberty given to the Press. As I have said, the progress being made is slow, so slow that European critics fail to grasp its real extent and value, but it is steady, widespread and real, a progress that will not be easily checked, and one that is doing more to change the character of the Egyptians in a healthy, life-giving manner than any other influence tending in the same direction.