Talk:Tewfik Pasha

message: Some of the language used in this article is absolutely appalling! I am very surprised and deeply troubled that no one took notice of the expressions used to characterize Tewfik Pasha. The text is reminiscent of antiquated texts carrying very strong colonial and racist notions of European superiority and the text could be described as an example of Saidian Orientalism par excellence.
The character judgments that are being made about Tewfik Pasha are also very disturbing as they are presented as unchanging character traits that can be used to predict and explain the actions of this individual. This psychological presentation has no place in a modern and objective historical analysis.
Examples:
"In private life he was courteous and amiable. He had no desire to keep up the unapproachable state of an oriental ruler. Indeed, in many ways his manners and habits were less oriental than European. "
"He was not a particularly strong man either in mind or in character, but he showed a genuine desire to govern his country for its own benefit. He understood the importance to Egypt of British assistance and support; his natural shrewdness made him accept the British conditions; his natural good feeling kept him from any inclination to intrigue."
"He held this office only for a few months; but this was long enough to show that, if he was unambitious and not particularly intelligent or energetic, he had the wisdom to refrain from taking a part in the intrigues which then formed the chief part of political life in Egypt and Sudan."
I can see from the references that the article uses mostly texts from the turn of the 20th century (Britannica 11th edition 1910-1911). This offers an explanation for why the source material suffers from incorrigible bias but it does not excuse the author for having used this information unfiltered in a modern encyclopedia article.
163.1.167.209 (talk) 01:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct. This looked suspiciously like 1911 Britannica to me to, so I looked it up and it is lifted more or less word-for-word. Compare with the original, volume 26 page 686. The edits that the plagiarist made are minor ("Egypt" for "his native country") and sometimes odd or just plain wrong ("fellow tenants" for "fellah tenants"). Unfortunately, I'm not an expert—I did take one undergraduate course that covered this era in the context of Africa, but that was 20 years ago—so I don't have decent modern scholarship source material at hand. I'll see if I can't rummage some up, but of course someone better qualified than I am should fix it. Illexsquid (talk) 17:26, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 163.1.167.209's comments made me laugh. Racism and colonialism? Many third-world country leaders (because Egypt is a third-world country without doubt) and so-named intelligentsia of these countries are speaking about colonialism as if that period would have been a negative one in their history. They are forgetting the quasi-continous fratricid fights and wars that preceded the colonialist era, the lack of roads, schools, hospitals, or in one word the signs of civilization. It's curious to see that successors of those people who could even survive and live a satisfactory life because of the peaceful conditions and health system (including modern drugs and surgery) of the much blamed colonial period are speaking about racism and exploitation. It is quite comical that the new, bit more civilized generation of all these now liberated countries claim back archeological findings now kept in Western museums, but when the first turmoil arises in their country (see Irak, and recently Egypt), all these objects (e.g. Paharoh sarcophags that are not even part of the present Muslim culture) are spread in streets, destroyed, sacked, made inaccessible to future generations of the mankind (planet Earth). Let's be serious, let's try to see our past without impartiality from both sides.Mazarin07 (talk) 13:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

text: Just remove the commentary? William Avery (talk) 14:02, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racism and antiquated language with very strong colonial-imperialistic undertones