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Book description
In Peasant Politics in Modern Egypt, Nathan Brown engages with and challenges the historiography of peasant studies in an attempt to explain the political actions of Egypt’s fellahin. In beginning with, and rejecting, the dichotomy that treats peasants as either backwards and ignorant or the soul of the nation and the essence of revolution, the author attempts to uncover a more nuanced understanding of the different configurations of peasant politics and under what circumstances they take particular forms. He identifies four major types of action, atomistic, communal, institutional, and revolutionary, and suggests that they are influenced by three major social structures: “the system of agricultural production, the village, and the state”. Finally, he acknowledges two theories of peasant outlook, the moral economy based on a subsistence ethic and the individualist who can be either rational or backwards.With these tools in hand, Brown sets out to determine which are relevant in the Egyptian case, but begins by placing his study in its historical context. His period of study, which is not explicit and seems to be intentionally fluid in order to provide him with the flexibility to invoke the methodological concepts at his disposal, can be inferred as the period from the reign of Muhammad Ali until the 1952 Revolution, although the bulk of his analysis takes place in the pre-World War II era of the British occupation. He notes four major changes in Egyptian agriculture: technological developments that led to more cultivatable land, a strengthening of landownership rights that increased land’s value as an investment and helped centralize it in the hands of wealthy individuals, the rise of cash crops, and a large population increase that outpaced the availability of land. He then defines the three major agriculture systems of the age, “the commercial estate system, the commercial smallholding system, and the subsistence smallholding system”, which were buttressed by a strong state that was becoming more invasive in its attempts to enact “modernizing” reforms. In chapter three, the author attempts to outline the political outlook of the peasantry and argues that there are three sources from which this could be discerned: “what peasants said, what others said about them, and what peasants did”. He focuses primarily on the second, since the first is unavailable generally and the third concerns outcomes more than mentalities. From an outsider perspective, ignorance was the defining feature of the peasantry, which was a result of their apathy towards reform and modernity. This, according to Brown, suggests that they “were neither liberal nor statist and seemed to look dimly on public life in a modern state”. From here he defines three important elements of their outlook: “a fear and resentment of the state, a desire to undermine rather than confront potential adversaries, and a parochial and personal perspective”. The first was a combined result of their interaction with the state through taxes, conscription, the corvee, justice, and reform, all of which had a deleterious impact on their lives. Their non-confrontational nature was due to institutions being biased against them, while their experiences and attachments led them to conceptualize their concerns in terms of a local perspective.The author then spends a chapter each examining how his four types of action were engaged by the Egyptian peasantry. He begins his look at atomistic activity, such as crime, by acknowledging that it was rarely conceptualized as political behavior, but arguing that it usually did not stem from self-interest and that it allowed peasants to cope with their situation in a realistic manner. Furthermore, the fact that such everyday activities made the news (as crime) meant that they were a contemporary concern of the state, probably because they posed a direct threat to elites and symbolized a rejection of the reforms that the notables wanted to impose. This was the most common form of action regardless of production system because it was the best fit for their political outlook: it attacked the state’s efforts to “reform” the peasantry, was non-confrontational (particularly since the silence of the peasantry allowed perpetrators to get away more often than not), and it responded most often to interests that were local and personal in nature, tying self-interest to resentment against the state. Because this type of action was the most common, yet also not often conceptualized as resistance by authorities or scholars, the Egyptian peasantry has been perceived as passive and quiescent. Communal action, meanwhile, was also popular across production systems, but was more defensive and reactive and less frequent due to its confrontational nature. It did, however, blend an outlet for antagonism against the state with an emphasis on getting local concerns addressed.In contrast, Brown asserts that the other two types of action were less common and that past studies have overstated their importance. Examining three forms of legal and institutional activity, voting, party activity, and the petitioning of officials, he begins by suggesting that peasants were indifferent towards voting, since elections did not offer rural voters any real choice. Evidence of such activity among Egyptian peasants is explained by their very apathy towards the process: since they did not feel that their vote had value, they were bribed or coerced easily into voting the way notables and officials wanted them to. Political parties that supported the peasantry, meanwhile, were not successful nationally and were often viewed with suspicion by both the authorities and the peasants, which meant that they could achieve little. As for petitioning, it was more widespread, partially because peasants were not always the actual driving force behind the petitions (it was usually notables) and because the legitimate ones were seeking to have concerns of a local nature addressed. Finally, the author looks into revolution and focuses on two that have been suggested to have had a significant peasant element: the Urabi Revolt and the 1919 Revolution. In both cases, he finds that the alleged peasant involvement was driven heavily by the notables, who were more likely to be the true beneficiaries of such movements.Based on his findings, Brown’s conclusion postulates that the “moral economy” model of peasant behavior is a better, but not perfect, fit in the Egyptian case and the nature of the rural agricultural structure had a limited impact overall on peasant behavior. Moreover, the struggle was generally a futile one, since their efforts did not have a serious impact on state penetration, even if they addressed important local problems. Yet the peasant battle was perceived as a continuous one, not one with the end goal of overthrowing the state, and in this way their resistance was meaningful and allowed them to survive. Overall, Peasant Politics in Egypt is an engaging and critical read that seems to advance peasant studies forward although, lacking a strong background in the field, it is difficult to determine the extent of its impact or analyze its shortcomings. Nonetheless, specialists in Egyptian and peasant studies will likely find value in what this book has to offer, which is only enhanced by its well-executed signposting and recapitulation.
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