Modernity, the institutions of the nation-state and a bit of exotization

What I found most interesting of this week’s readings was the relationship between “Colonizing Egypt” and how it ties into other topics such as institutions, organizations, anthropology/exotization,  creative destruction, post-modernity and finally, the difference of what Kandiyoti understands to be the collective experience of British, French and American colonies versus the Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian ones. I think to this point, it is worth mentioning that Egypt shared a bit of both British and Ottoman experiences.

In “Colonizing Egypt” we can find quite a survey on power, and how this one comes from authority that sits above and outside society as power sets limits to behavior; in this context, modernity and power relate in the sense that in a “modern state”, power works from within through a set of fixed organizational structures such as schools, factories and armies. This works out into two consequences from which I personally I cannot fully see a way to avoid them:

1)Colonial subjects and their modes of resistance move within the organizational territory of the colonial state as opposed to an entirely different exterior space.
2) Power relations become internal and eventually form the already mentioned external structures.

A great example of this transition to modernity is offered as the disciplined and uniformed solider who   is clearly distinguishable from civilians

The above mentioned structures move beyond institutions and also deal with city planning as it is described for them to be heavily influenced by bureaucrats and corporate elites. It is stated that “modern cities” are “plastic by nature”, artificial in their principle and purpose.  It is worth noticing as well the principle of creative destruction that goes hand in hand with modernity; the creation of a new world implies the destruction of the former; this reflection is particularly important when thinking on modern discourse and its implications in colonial entities and subjects, such as the Egyptian case.

Kandiyoti mentiones that modernization theory became the “broad rubric” under which “failures” of development were being addressed. Kandiyoti’s view seem to be particularly well reflected in the passage “Egypt at the exhibition” in Mitchell’s “Colonizing Egypt” which altogether is a masterpiece of colonial interactions. The Egyptian delegation noticed the carefully depiction of Cairo, even down to the small details like the dirt on buildings’ paint and the overall chaotic feel of what could be considered as the center of the Egypt modernity.
This exhibition overall disgusted the Egyptian delegation; their embarrassment reached its peak when they went into what was supposed to be a mosque and turned out to be a coffee shop where performances were taking place. It is also remarkable how the Egyptian delegation were originally invited and received as scholars with a degree of a kind of morbid curiosity which increased as they began to speak their own language; they became exoticized and thus, became part of the exhibition.

The objectness feature of Orientalism became evident, the exhibition was now complete with the Egyptian scholar, the vast deport of objects had its final piece. It might seem that modernity in the views of Kandiyoti and Mitchell (mainly) makes objects out of people (in modernity’s attempt to develop the concept of universality in law, science and morality). Once people becomes and object, modernity seems to keep treating them as such.

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