A new interpretation of the 1882 revolt, writes Marco Pinfari, shows that the old fallacies and prejudices of the colonial era tend to resurface in contemporary historiography, just in a different form Was the burning of Alexandria in July 1882 the outcome of an anti-Christian mob unleashed by General ? Was the spokesman of an "Islamic League" that spread across the Muslim world, from North Africa to India? Was Khedive Tewfiq alarmed about the spread of "radical Islam" among his subjects? These rumours might sound unfamiliar to those who correctly associate the revolt with the dawn of the Egyptian nationalist movement. Surprisingly enough, however, such rumours were among the short-term factors that convinced the British government led by William Gladstone to set foot in Egypt in the summer of 1882 and put an end to Egypt's semi-independent status within the Ottoman empire. Like all rumours, they had some foundations in reality. A number of Europeans were killed in Alexandria in the context of popular disorders in June and July 1882. In his last letter to Gladstone, written on 2 July and delivered shortly before the bombardment, famously threatened the British prime minister that "use will be made of the religious zeal of Mohammedans, to preach holy war in Syria, in Arabia and in India", mentioned that "an agreement [had] been come to with the religious leaders of every land throughout the Mohammedan world", and made clear that all Muslims were "bound by their religious law" to defend Egypt as "the key to Mecca and Medina". Yet, at least since the 1970s, Western historians like Alexander Scholch, A.G. Hopkins and M.E. Chamberlain have demonstrated that economic, political and strategic interests were the direct causes of the British invasion, and that other "facts" were explicitly distorted to create a casus belli. Indeed, throughout the nine months of the crisis, British newspapers and "men on the spot" provided a systematically biased version of the internal dynamics of Egyptian politics, repeatedly trying to portray as the leader of a violent and anti-Christian movement. In the most explicit and well-documented rebuttal of these arguments ("Gladstone's Imperialism in Egypt", published in 1997), Robert Harrison also noted that British shells, and "not soldiers or a mob", caused the widespread devastation in Alexandria's city centre in July 1882. The pictures of destroyed or damaged buildings show that they had been "pulverized, not charred", and the large number of shells that hit the city directly is undoubtedly to be considered as "more intentional than accidental". Indeed, in the trial that followed the defeat at Tel El-Kebir, the British dropped the charges against for the facts in Alexandria (including his alleged role in fomenting anti-Christian riots), most probably fearing that the testimonies of eyewitnesses would have played in favour of 's defence. According to Harrison, finally, "little is known" also about 's involvement in an Islamic League apart from 's letter to Gladstone. This letter was dictated by in the heat of the crisis and in the midst of British ultimata, when the British fleet was ready for striking Alexandria. In mid-August 1882, before the battle of Tel El-Kebir, the secretary of the "National Mahometan Association" in England, Sayid Ameer Ali, reassured the British public that the Indian Muslims were not keen on following 's call and that, indeed, "his endeavour to proclaim a jehad without the imprimatur of the authority of the Caliph is viewed by a Mahometan community as the extravagant outcome of insensate presumption". Although it is easy to imagine that they generated some panic back in London, from a historiographic perspective 's threats sound as little more than a generic, unilateral and somehow desperate call for international solidarity. Against this background, it is quite remarkable to read a recently published book, written by an author boasting his education at Harvard and Oxford, attempting to portray essentially as a religious fanatic. Dominic Green's Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899, published in New York by Free Press in 2007, dedicates one chapter to the revolt and its impact on Egyptian politics. The book is written in an agile and almost journalistic style, and quotation marks are used freely to mark both quotes from authentic sources and unreferenced statements or slogans that the actors in the crisis might have used if the scenarios described by British sources were correct. According to Green, then, since December 1881 the Khedive Tewfiq was increasingly worried about both and Mohammad Abduh, which represented "radical Islam on his doorstep". 's letter to Gladstone gave the latter "no option" but to "protect [the Canal] unilaterally by British arms"; and on 11 July, after "the populace had realised that the British only intended to bombard the harbour forts, and not the city behind them", a revolt unfolded across Alexandria at the slogan "Death to the Christians!" Green's account of the revolt could be easily dismissed as ill-informed, superficial, and -- considering the dominant trends of academic research on the revolt -- somehow anachronistic. Yet it does succeed in highlighting why the revolt continues to raise so much interest in academic circles, and why such interest has been revived after 9/11. The 1882 war clearly constitutes a paradigmatic instance of conflictual encounter between Europe and the Middle East, and of an international crisis in which political, economic, and diplomatic rivalries intersect with a range of religious and cultural prejudices on both parts. At a closer look, however, Green's account also reveals a more interesting side. In his story, he indirectly demonstrates the continuing relevance of the "old" colonial conceptual fallacies that generated the spread of false rumours about in the very same days of the revolt. Like the British reporters of the London Times or Daily News, or the senior politicians in Gladstone's government, Green essentially expects that -- no matter what the facts on the ground were -- the movement will eventually turn out to be violent or anti-Christian. The publication of the programme of the Egyptian National Party in the Times on 3 January 1882 only momentarily lured the British press into believing that represented an authentic, articulate nationalistic movement. As the crisis unfolded, the press was keen on describing as a "usurper" who threatened to "cut to pieces" the ulema loyal to the khedive. When on 1 June Gladstone told the Commons that had "thrown off the mask", he formally referred to 's alleged ambition to overthrow the khedive, but informally aimed at legitimising a widespread prejudice of that time -- that, behind its pompous self-determination agenda, an Arab nationalistic movement must have been little more than a collection of blood-thirsty rebels. Green seems to follow a similar syllogism, but this time his assessment is based not so much (or not primarily) on anti- Arab stereotypes, but rather on a religious discourse, drawing undue conclusions from the involvement of some religious figures (especially Mohammed Abduh, hardly a "radical" Islamist) in the movement and from the synchronism between the revolt and the Mahdist movement in Sudan. The killing of European Christians in the revolts in Alexandria then becomes an obvious consequence of the anti-Christian nature of the movement and of the increased relevance of messianic Islamic movements in Middle Eastern politics in the 1880s. That is, in his book Green explains a central moment of contemporary Middle Eastern politics by taking for granted that the involvement of religious figures in a nationalistic movement automatically gives such a movement a predominant religious radicalist inspiration, and by relying on connections -- albeit improbable -- among different revolts across the region or the Muslim world, based on little more than historical synchrony. In today's political and academic environment, he is in good company. The distortion of the aims and agenda of the movement led by Ahmad reflected, in 1882, the predominant anti-Arab prejudice of the British elite; and it reflects, today, the inability of many researchers and political commentators to explain Middle Eastern politics with reference to anything but extremist Islam. After 125 years, the revolt remains a very controversial and complex episode of the contemporary history of Egypt, many interesting sides of the revolt remain open for academic debate. In 1882 as well as today, however, complexity is no excuse for allowing cultural prejudices and sloppy historiography to hold sway.
