Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day

The good work that is thus being done is due in the first place to the sound and enlightened views of Lord Cromer, who has persistently refused to be guided, or rather misguided, by the suggestions of those who would fain see a censorship established. By the course he has adopted Lord Cromer has thrown upon the journalists of the country a degree of responsibility of which, though as yet its obligations are not fully recognised by those on whom they lie, must tend, and is indeed tending, to render the Press worthy of the trust reposed in it. It is due to the sense of this responsibility already felt both by journalists and the public, that the serious journalists find themselves compelled more and more to justify the policy they advocate, and to maintain it with consistency. Thus instructed by experience, the people are yearly exacting a higher standard of excellence from the Press, and the demand is being met by a corresponding improvement. We must not forget, however, that the possibilities inherent in Lord Cromer's wise policy might have still been lying dormant and unproductive, if among the Egyptians there had been no one to see these, and, taking them up, render them in some degree an actuality. Fortunately the occasion brought the man. It was in the year 1887 that a small weekly Arabic paper styled the Adab was first established at Cairo. This rapidly becoming known for the ability with which its articles were written, continued to grow in favour with the Mahomedan public, to which it was specially addressed, as a journal devoted to science, literature, and religion, until the year 1890 when its editor joined the staff of the daily newspaper, the Moayyad, of which, three years later, he became the sole proprietor. From that date onward the Moayyad progressed rapidly, and becoming the recognised organ of the Ulema of the Azhar, took the position it still maintains as the leading Arabic and Islamic journal, not only in Egypt but throughout the Mahomedan world. Various journals have been started from time to time in opposition to or rivalry with the Moayyad, but none have ever succeeded in impairing its supremacy. From first to last this success has been attained and preserved by the Sheikh Ali Youssef, its proprietor and editor. Well read in all learning that qualifies a man to take his place among the Ulema, but ignorant of every language save his own, the Sheikh, as a newspaper man and a leader writer, is not only foremost among the journalists of the East, but one who in his chief merit has few, if any, rivals among the journalists of the world. "His paper," says Mr. Hartmann in his "Arabic Press of Egypt," "is a power to be reckoned with. Moslems read it with pleasure, finding in it what most delights their hearts. There they read in strong, well-chosen and simple language their own thoughts, or rather, what they imagine to be their own thoughts; for such is the art of the cunning journalist, that the unsuspicious reader follows in the track of the writer's thoughts and fancies them to be his own." When I add that this man is a man of thought, of great self-restraint, endowed with patience, energy, and perseverance, I have drawn the picture of one who, in any community, must exercise a large influence as a journalist, but amidst a people like the Egyptians, so little prone to think for themselves, must indeed be a power to reckon with. As a fact, he has done more to guide and mould Moslem opinion in Egypt than any other ten men that could be named. Like the historian Gabarty, of Arabic origin he is personally a reserved, thoughtful man, leading a quiet, studious life, adverse to ostentation and parade of every kind, and yet possessing keen business instincts. The position he has won for his journal has been gained by the steady pursuit of the policy which he from the first adopted – the love of justice and the desire to promote the interests of Islam and of Egypt. He has again and again had to meet the open hostility of different classes of the people he has been trying to serve, for he has not hesitated to advocate unpopular measures and ideals when these have commended themselves to his judgment, and yet he is persistently set down by Europeans as a fanatic and intriguer! Recognising as fully as any man can do the advantages that the English occupation has conferred upon the country, he is yet as a Moslem compelled to weigh these against the disadvantages due, not specially to the presence of the English but to the influence of the European Powers generally. Striving always to hold a just balance, never hasty to judge, fearless though moderate in the expression of his views, he is the one and only journalist in the country who for years past has steadily and with absolute honesty of purpose endeavoured to promote harmony and goodwill between the people and their English rulers. The Egyptians have long since recognised this. There was a time, indeed, when not a few of them cried out that he had been bought by the English. Unfortunately Europeans understand neither the man nor his policy, and seizing upon some extract from his paper, as often as not wrested from a qualifying context, and possibly written by an outside contributor, paint him as a firebrand and fanatic.

The best gift that England has yet given Egypt is, then, the freedom of the Press, for this has been and is the influence tending more and more strongly than any other towards the healthy development of the character of the people. There are some, if not many, who, claiming to know the country, will be inclined to deny this, but should no malign counter influence arise to stay the progress now being made, I am confident the verdict of the future will justify my view.

The three healthy influences I have thus described – the the increased knowledge of European civilisation, and of the present condition of the Islamic world, and the development of the Arabic Press – are each stimulating and correcting the other, and are those which of all others are working to modify and improve the national character. The result they have so far jointly produced has been that the Egyptian is learning to take a broader and therefore a healthier view of himself and his surroundings, and has acquired new and nobler aspirations. His ideals are no longer what they were but a quarter of a century ago, and, in recognising this fact, he recognises that the change has been brought about very largely through the English occupation, and that it is a change for the better. Nor is the Egyptian ungrateful, as he is often and unjustly accused of being. If his gratitude is not more pronounced, unfortunately there is too ample reason for its moderation.

Long years ago my old nurse once showed me a pot of my favourite jam and promised that my watering lips should feast upon it without restraint provided I were a good boy and first took a spoonful of Gregory's Powder. I can still remember how my lips dried up at the very mention of that most abominable of all the medicines ever thrust upon suffering humanity, and I turned with loathing from the jam that a moment before had been so lusciously appetising.

Let us see what is the Gregory's Powder that taints the sweetness of the benefits that England has conferred upon Egypt.

CHAPTER XIX
UNHEALTHY INFLUENCES

I should have been well contented if it had been possible for me to write this chapter as a parody of that ever famous one on "The Snakes of Ireland." Unhappily there are unhealthy influences in Egypt – influences placing difficulties in the way of the English administrators of the country, ever discouraging and disheartening the Egyptian, ever tending to turn him from the path of progress, influences that have been and are holding back the advance that is being made.

In my last chapter I spoke of the benefits derived from the liberty of the Press; in this I have to speak of the evil it produces, for first and chief of all the unhealthy influences in Egypt is the Mokattam, the newspaper that is regarded as the special organ of English interests in Egypt. While yet Sheikh Ali was wholly unknown, three Syrian Christians who had established a monthly literary magazine at Beirout, decided to transfer it to Cairo. There it acquired a well-deserved popularity it still maintains. Possessed of ability, and full of the energy and enterprise that is a characteristic of their race, the proprietors of this monthly saw in the English occupation an opportunity of enlarging their sphere of action and started a daily paper, the Mokattam, just a year before the Moayyad appeared. The policy that this new journal adopted, and has persistently maintained to the present day, was the twofold one of supporting English interests in Egypt and of attacking Islam and the Turkish Empire on all possible occasions. Caring nothing for their adopted country, and ever mindful of the fact that it was the interference of the European Powers that compelled Mahomed Ali to abandon Syria, they entered upon their task with enthusiasm, and, though the Moayyad was not long in passing it in popularity, they early succeeded in gaining for the Mokattam the position it holds of undoubtedly the ablest of all the Christian journals published in the Arabic language. Save only as to the lines upon which it seeks to promote the policy it advocates, it may indeed justly claim the highest praise for the manner in which it is written and conducted.

In the days when the English occupation and the two rival journals, the Moayyad and the Mokattam, were all still young, Egyptian politics and therefore Egyptian newspapers were run upon purely party lines, and as Dr. Johnson thought he was best fulfilling his mission in seeing that "the Whig dogs did not get the best of it," so all who dabbled in any degree with Egyptian politics thought it their bounden duty to admit no good or merit in any who opposed their views. Hence, while the English administrators were still blunderingly trying to find their way through the maze of difficulties they had to encounter, and trying first this and then that remedy for the evils they had to contend with, from the newspapers and people of the country they could get no assistance whatever. It was the policy of the Mokattam to support the English, and with the editors' primitive ideas they could find no other way of doing this than by lauding with indiscriminate praise everything the English did or proposed to do. It was the policy of the Moayyad to decry and depreciate all that the Mokattam approved or supported. Each of the two papers was thus pursuing exactly the line most calculated to defeat its own aim, and throw discredit on its own cause, for as the praise of the Mokattam was constantly being discounted by the admitted failure of the measures it had lustily approved, so the discrimination of the Moayyad was belittled by the success of those it had condemned. From that day to this the Mokattam has learned nothing. It pursues the same line to-day that it did then. It has not been so with the Moayyad. Sheikh Ali Youssef was far too able a man to be long in seeing the folly inherent in politics of this puerile type, and he determined to adopt a higher line. It was no easy task he thus set himself. He was still a young man, and as such his abilities received rather stinted acknowledgment from the greybeards, who were the leaders of the Moslem and National party. His journal was not yet strong enough to choose its own position, and its existence and influence, as well as his own future, depended wholly upon the support he received from self-satisfied, self-willed men, who thought it their province to dictate and not to learn. And with this difficulty Sheikh Ali had the graver one of having to find a policy and a method of advocating it that would practically reconcile the almost irreconcilable. Like all Egyptians, and indeed all non-Christian Easterns, he held then, as now, that of all the European Powers England was the one with which friendship was most possible. It was, however, at the moment the approved policy of the Egyptian National party to profess a preference for France, and therefore the Moslem papers were expected to hold up France and the French as the friends and allies of Islam. Had Sheikh Ali attacked this view, his rashness would have been the death-knell of the Moayyad. He saw this clearly, but he was not a man to be deterred by difficulties, or daunted by dangers. That which was right and true was right and true, and it was his duty, as one of the Ulema, to teach and to preach that which was right and true. But to run amuck against the prevailing prejudices would be to ensure failure. If he were to succeed, it must be by degrees, by the slow and patient conversion of others to his views, by a steady and almost stealthy diffusion of his ideas. In the East the circulation and writings of a journal are often but little guide to the power and influence really possessed by its editor, for an editor is frequently able to accomplish far more by his direct personal influence, outside his journal, than he could by the most earnest or able advocacy of those views in its columns. It was so with Sheikh Ali. There were men of influence who were quite prepared to listen attentively to anything he had to say to them in private, and to accept and adopt his views in the same way, but who would not have tolerated a journal that rashly published the same ideas to the world at large. Starting boldly, yet with due caution, Sheikh Ali set himself to the task of educating his supporters. Slowly, and in sugar-coated pills of homeopathic size, he administered to them minute doses of the ideas he wished them to digest. Slowly, but surely and steadily, he overcame the difficulties before him. One by one, even those who would not consent to the Moayyad propagating such ideas, admitted that the Sheikh was right. Time went on, and with its flight the old fiery spirits of the Nationalist party, the "No surrender" men of the old type, gradually died out, and changes of many kinds came to pass, and still the Sheikh was struggling with opposition, and still he was steadily gaining ground; but as falling bodies gather speed and force in their descent, so intellectual movements gather force and speed in their ascent, and thus in spite of all difficulties, difficulties that only undauntable pluck, unwearied patience, and ability could face, much less triumph over, the Sheikh accomplished his purpose, and scarcely knowing how, or why, or indeed that it is so, the Egyptians have adopted the Sheikh's policy, a policy that may be summed up in the phrase, "Peace and Progress."

It would have been well for Egypt, and not less so for British interests, if the editors of the Mokattam had followed in the wake of Sheikh Ali, but, as I have said, their policy is to-day what it was at the beginning, the same narrow-minded bigotry in its pro-English partisanship and the same foolish fanaticism in its anti-Turkish crusade. The true interests of the country, or of their co-religionists, or of the occupation, are all alike sacrificed to their morbid love of wounding and hurting the religious and social sentiments of the Egyptians, or of venting their impotent hatred of the Turk. Thus their record is a record of evil, a record of needless difficulties heaped up in the way of the English administrators of the country, of ill-will and animosity excited among the people. The two strongest factors in the formation of Egyptian opinion are, as I have shown, the attachment of the people to their religion and their attachment to the Turkish Empire. Both these sentiments are persistently and wilfully outraged by the Mokattam. It does not indulge in the rabid rant of the anti-Turkish Press in England, but while keeping within the limits of decent language it loses no opportunity of saying aught that can wound the feelings, offend the prejudices, or excite the anger of the Moslems, and it does this as the organ of the English occupation, as a journal universally believed to be largely subsidised by the English, and therefore a journal believed also to be the expression of the real views, aims, and sentiments of the English occupants of the country. Is it any wonder that the pacific policy, the unbroken respect for Moslem prejudices that Lord Cromer has always shown, should assume in the eyes of the Egyptians the character of a temporary policy – a policy to be abandoned as soon as circumstances should permit the open adoption of the anti-Islamic policy of the avowed organ of English interests? The old reactionary party has almost wholly died out; what remains of it is not less in touch with the real sentiments of the people than is the Young Egypt party that to a certain extent is its successor, but neither of the two parties ever has done, or could do, a tithe of the harm the Mokattam is still doing. The attacks of the anti-Turkish Press in England, the anti-Islamic writings of the late Sir William Muir and other critics affect Moslems in Egypt or elsewhere but little, for it is known that these represent but narrow circles of thought, but that the local journal which is spoken of by Englishmen themselves as the "English organ" should be for ever out-Heroding the efforts of those circles has, and could have, but one result – a profound distrust of the professions made as to the true aim and object of the occupation. This is the key to the lack of enthusiasm, the want of gratitude, for which the Egyptians are so often rebuked. Men like Mr. Dicey may build up theories of their own on what, to the Englishman at home, may seem at least plausible arguments, but they are only drawing herrings across the trail of the true explanation. Thus the journal which, as Mr. Hartmann says, has "gained favour with Lord Cromer," has been of all other causes the one which has most freely and wantonly strewn his path with needless difficulties. Face to face with the anti-Islamic sentiments of the English organ in Egypt, it is utterly hopeless to expect Moslems in Egypt or elsewhere to regard the English occupation with any other feelings than those of distrust. Had the Mokattam been conducted upon conciliatory lines, had it striven to guide the English with the healthy, honest advice it could have given, had it endeavoured to promote an intelligent appreciation of the good work that has been done and is doing, it would have rendered a service of incalculable value to the English and to the Egyptians alike, and with their undoubted ability its editors would have taken their place among the greatest benefactors of the country. As it is they have wrought no service and much ill, and may pride themselves upon having been the greatest obstacle in the way of the progress that has been made. The one thing that Lord Cromer has needed most of all throughout his long, brilliant, and self-devoting struggle has been the cordial co-operation of the people. The one thing that more than all else has tended to deprive him of that co-operation has been the anti-Islamic attitude of the Arabic organ of the occupation. Had I been writing this a year ago it would have been possible for me to say that happily the growing confidence of the people in Lord Cromer and in the intentions of the English Government was steadily, if very slowly, undoing and counteracting the evil thus done. Unfortunately I cannot say so to-day. Events have occurred that have almost wholly scattered all the fruit of the progress that had been made in this direction.

We have seen that, little inclined as the Egyptians were to welcome any prolongation of the occupation, they had accepted the evacuation of Fachoda as at least a temporary resolution of all the doubts and uncertainties that had worried them for so long. It was what those who understand them might have expected. They are essentially an impulsive people. In every emergency their decision is made without hesitation or faltering, too often without consideration or thought of any kind but the impulse of the moment. To such a people nothing could be more trying, more irritating than that they should be kept on from month to month and year to year helplessly waiting on the decision of others, or on a development of events they were powerless to control. This cause was alone almost sufficient to stay all progress, social or political, prior to the evacuation of Fachoda. For years they had been "waiting to hear the verdict," and when it came, the mere fact of the ending of their long, anxious suspense, took much of the sting from the bitterness the verdict itself might otherwise have created. And apart from all political and religious feeling there were two causes that greatly intensified the Egyptian's burthen during that trying wait. These were his love of freedom and his love of peace and concord. As an individual there is nothing the Egyptian prizes more than his freedom – not his liberty, but his freedom; not the legal and formal admission of his rights, but the absence of restraint that gives a sense of unfettered ease; not the liberty that is the birthright of every British subject, be he master or man, but the freedom the master enjoys as master. For this the Egyptian can and will make many sacrifices, even bartering much of his liberty that he may enjoy it. And this freedom he could not enjoy while yet the fate of the country was in the balance. Reticent to his nearest kin in the expression of his thoughts, he yet loves to speak freely within the limits he allows himself, and this he could not do while yet he had to guard against exciting the animosity of rival parties and interests. He was neither sitting on the wall nor trimming. On the broad general question at issue he was clear in his own mind and did not hesitate to say what he thought, but he could not get beyond that. He could not discuss men and matters as he should have liked to have done. Once the die was cast and the supremacy of the English settled, he was no longer tossed on the horns of the dilemma, Which of two evils is the least? but free to take a side and say as he would, This thing is good or bad. It was the same with his love of peace and concord. Hospitable and kindhearted, ever ready to surrender his own comfort and convenience, not only for his friends but for the stranger, the universally prevalent discord was to him a real grievance, so real that he would have accepted almost any solution provided only that it offered a reasonable hope of the re-establishment of harmony. When after the revolt of Cairo, and again after the siege, truce was declared, the people of the town accepted it loyally and kept it faithfully. They submitted to the rule of the French most unwillingly and only under compulsion, but having done so they adhered without murmur or quibble to the pact. It was the same after Marchand had left the Nile behind him on his homeward way. Finding themselves definitely under the English, they accepted the inevitable, and were, as they still are, ready to loyally, honestly, and fully discharge their acceptance.

There was therefore a complete change in the attitude of the people towards the English, and it was not unnatural for them to look for a corresponding change on the part of the English. No such change occurred. Up to Fachoda the Egyptians had been courted and flattered by the anti-English Europeans in the country. The English, with a few rare exceptions, held aloof from them. After Fachoda the anti-English quietly dropped the Egyptians. The English maintained their attitude of indifference, and to the Egyptian seemed rather to assume a haughtier air, to adopt more and more the tone of conquerors in a hostile land, to treat the people as enemies, and as enemies scarce worthy of a thought. The Boer War broke out, and in the torrent of disasters that pursued the British troops the Egyptians found excuse for the reserved and chilling manners of the English. But the closing of the war brought no change, and the Egyptians began to ask themselves, Of what avail is it that we seek to conciliate the English when they make no response? None the less they adhered to the position they had taken, and hoped, as they still do, that Englishmen would wake up to a sense of the injustice with which they were acting. Meanwhile the utter failure of the English to understand the real attitude and feelings of the people towards them lends weight and force to the evil wrought by the Mokattam. If, the Egyptians ask, the English are really anxious to benefit us, how is it that they thus hold us at arm's length? How can they benefit us without knowing or understanding what are our hopes, our wishes, our aspirations, our prejudices, our predilections? And how can they know aught of these while they sedulously avoid all intercourse, friendship, or familiarity with us?

But it is not simply English aloofness of which complaint is made, but the vulgar and aggressive self-assertion, the rudeness and want of common civility so many are constantly guilty of in their accidental intercourse with the people of the country. These are things complained of by Europeans, and, as is well known, in Europe as well as in Egypt. The Englishman flatters himself that these complaints are due to envy and fanaticism. Nothing could be more contrary to the fact. It is the expression, not of envy, but of contempt, the utter scorn of the man of the world for the uncultivated boor. That this is so is proved by the fact that this antipathy is felt and shown only towards two classes of Englishmen: classes that have unfortunately of late years grown – as other unhealthy excrescences are prone to do – rapidly, the cads and those who ape these under the guise of "good form." Men of the latter type are much too numerous in Egypt, and may claim the credit of placing endless difficulties and obstacles in the way of Lord Cromer and English interests. The men who have made the Empire were men cast in another mould. They were masterful men; men who could and did command respect through inherent force of character and ability; men born to command; men whom others followed and obeyed as a privilege. The men I speak of are of a different type. Lacking in the high qualities of their predecessors, and sensible of their defects, these seek to obtain by arrogance the respect they cannot command. With many it is their misfortune. The true cad owes his contemptible character to his narrow training and the want of a healthy, manly brain. "Born of a butcher, by a bishop bred, how high he holds his haughty head!" But the great majority of those who by their caddish behaviour, like the ill-birds of the old adage, foul their own nests, have not this excuse to offer. They sin wilfully, deliberately choosing to act as cads in toadying compliance with what the monied cads whose society they crave are pleased to consider "good form." Like the pariah dogs of the street, fawning upon all who perchance may have a bone to throw to them and snapping and snarling at all others, the true cad can never rise above his brainless, soulless self, but the man whose caddish manners are as the mud-stained garb of he who has rolled in the gutter is, often enough, at heart a sound and healthy-minded man, a brave and honest gentleman, a lion wrapped in the skin of an ass! Verily a wondrous spectacle, most strangely reversing the old fable! I have seen and known such men in times of stress and danger to be all that men should be, and I have marvelled to see them return to the old false, lying lives.

Happily the evil is one that will not last. Already he who hath eyes to see may see that once more a great revolution is in progress. The old English aristocracy of men who ruled at home and abroad by right of their high qualities is fast dying out. The stately old oak that has weathered the storms and stresses of so many long years is withering and perishing, smothered under the unhealthy growth of parasites that are sucking its life-sap. The old aristocracy is almost gone, the new with nothing but its money-bags to sustain it, has not succeeded, and never can succeed, to the political or social power of its predecessors, and these, therefore, are passing on to the strong men of the plebeian world, men who, without the polish, have much, if not all the virtues of the Empire-building classes of the past. For the last time that history will ever record a government that might by any just use of terms call itself "Conservative" has sat in the English House of Commons. Look back at the life of France ere yet the hurricane swirl of the red flag of revolution had scattered its aristocracy as a fierce autumn storm scatters the lingering leaves of the bygone summer. The lesson is an old, old one – one taught in many pages of history, one coming down to us from those far-off days wherein men first heard the proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

The evil is one that will not last. Pharaohs, Ptolemies, Mamaluks, Cesars, Bonapartes; patricians, feudal lords, aristocracies; in short, all caddisms and flunkeyisms and falsities and other abominations, however they may flourish and thrive for the moment, if it were not for the clamour and blare of their own conceit, would ever hear Time tolling the passing bell that tells of their open graves.

Meanwhile, in Egypt and elsewhere, the two cads, the real and the mock, are among the most potent and the most active of the enemies of England and the English Empire, and the most costly luxury that the easy-going British taxpayer allows himself. This is so, for the ill-will and hatred that these excite leads thousands who might be the friends and promoters of English interests to devote themselves to hindering and counteracting those interests in every possible way. And this same dislike serves as a bond of union between the enemies of England everywhere. It is doing more than all else to unite the people of India of all races and creeds in one compact nationality, and is elsewhere, and in other manners, working evil for the Empire.