The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 was the most significant challenge to British imperial rule since the start of occupation in 1882. The suddenness and scale of the uprising, which included massive strikes, demonstrations, and incidents of violence, fractured the country along national lines. Scholarly approaches to this historical moment have broadened since Kedourie detailed its diplomatic history and Deeb explored the tensions and rivalries within the Egyptian political class. Moving beyond the political history of great men, Goldberg, Lockman, and Beinin investigated the role of peasants, workers, and trade unionists, while Baron and Badran analyzed the public participation of women in the nationalist movement. Most recently, Manela showed how the 1919 revolution reflected the contested internationalization of Wilsonian ideals. Egyptian participation in the revolution is well-documented, and yet analysis of British voices on the ground in Cairo has focused on official figures in the Residency, military, and Foreign Office. What of those British voices outside the formal offices of empire? How did the non-official British community characterize this mass manifestation of Egyptian national will? This paper performs a close reading of a previously unused source, the “Report of the Council of Cairo Non-official British Community to the British Mission of Enquiry,” written during the tumultuous and decisive events that shook Egypt prior to the arrival of the diplomatic mission of Alfred Milner. I excavate the political views and socio-economic positions of this “non-official” community, which included W. E. Kingsford, Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Cairo, the controversial irrigation specialist Sir William Willcocks, and other pillars of the colonial establishment. By examining the assumptions and essentializations that informed their view of Egyptian society, I show that the official narrative as set down by Lord Cromer and pre-war colonial apologists remained unshaken after months of widespread resistance to British imperialism. Yet despite their endorsement of continued colonial occupation, this conservative group directed pointed criticism at the British officials charged with ruling Egypt, and this tension within the British colonial edifice was unprecedented. Scholars are unanimous in their view that the Egyptian boycott of the Milner mission was effective and severely limited Milner’s access to local voices. This paper considers how non-official British interlocutors may have affected Milner’s reasoning and perception of Egypt and thereby adds a layer to the historiography of the Egyptian revolution of 1919 and the creation of the Milner report.

There is a persistent assumption in the study of cultural encounters since the eighteenth century that the global transfer of knowledge was a one-way process, transmitted from Europe and received by those outside its borders. By the mid-twentieth century, with the emergence of modernity as a largely intangible and rhetorical concept, processes of global knowledge exchange continued to be dominated by this perceived European authority and non-European apprenticeship of modernity. Derived from the central argument of her thesis on Islamic intellectual migration to Paris from the 1930s to the 1960s, this author will discuss in her paper this problematic framework of analysis for cultural encounters in the mid –twentieth century. Omitting the detailed case based studies of the thesis, this paper will instead provide a conceptual overview of this problematic paradigm which is fundamental to our understanding of global knowledge in the context of both colonial and post-colonial global history. The paper will thus discuss how this paradigm has come to frame the study of cultural encounters, how it was sustained and how it is a misleading interpretive framework contributing to fractious cultural relations, especially between the West and the Muslim world. It will subsequently put forward an alternative framework in which to explore both cultural encounters and intellectual developments relating to the idea of modernity. In particular, it will attempt to identify some of the global forces characterised under the banner of modernity and attempt to de-regionalise responses to them. While this problematic framework will be shown in relation to this author’s study of Islamic intellectual migration to Paris, it will also seek to engender further deliberation about the universal relevance of these considerations.

While there are certainly variations, national narratives tend to follow similar lines: there is the story of an ancient past or mythical origin followed by a period of decline, and then a modern movement toward revival. They generally include a set of identifiable heroes--past and perhaps present, individuals or collectives, real or mythical. In order to establish the national group’s distinct identity they also generally highlight events that mark the emergence of the national collective, just as they specify a set of traits or characteristics—cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious, confessional— understood to be constitutive of the people’s identity. Broadly defined, national narratives have many sources or authors; hence, they are multi-stranded, often with alternative or even competing elements. This paper’s focus, however, will be on the “official story,” the one propagated by the state leadership about the nation’s history, identity, and destiny. To be sure, various forms of coercion have been fundamental to maintaining the political order in the post-independence MENA countries. Nevertheless, the record suggest that regimes or ruling groups have all understood the importance of discursive tools in consolidating power. Given the dramatic changes the MENA region has witnessed since the beginning of the Arab uprisings, the question arises: along what lines may the national narratives be shifting or changing? What aspects of national history may be emphasized or excised as new leaderships come to power? Are the post-revolutionary regimes attempting to introduce new founding myths? How are national identity and mission be conceptualized going forward? This paper takes as its cases Egypt and Tunisia, which have witnessed dramatic leadership and regime changes since winter 2011, and Jordan where a lower level struggle over political and economic reform continues to challenge the regime. In order to discern or read the emerging narratives in these three countries, speeches from the leadership, newly issued documents (such as constitutions or charters), changes in textbooks, as well as the symbols used in celebrations of key holidays (or creations of new ones) will be carefully “read”. Having then established the parameters of the new (and perhaps defunct) themes, the second part of the paper will proceed to analyze and explaining both the origins of the evolving narrative changes as well as their role in the process of regime consolidation.