Summary
British statesman whose June 13, 1910 House of Commons speech on Egypt is Said’s opening exhibit in Orientalism: a defence of British occupation grounded not principally in military or economic power but in British knowledge of Egypt and of the Oriental (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.40-44 / printed p.31-35).
Details
- Said assembles Balfour’s authority before quoting him: long-time member of Parliament, former private secretary to Lord Salisbury, former chief secretary for Ireland, former secretary for Scotland, former prime minister, veteran of overseas crises, educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, in service to a monarch declared Empress of India in 1876, and placed to follow the Afghan and Zulu wars, the occupation of Egypt in 1882, the death of General Gordon in the Sudan, the Fashoda Incident, Omdurman, the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.40 / printed p.31).
- In the 1910 speech Balfour restated J. M. Robertson’s challenge about airs of superiority toward people called Oriental, and answered that through the whole history of the Orientals no traces of self-government are found, their great centuries having passed under despotisms, and that absolute government exercised by Britain in Egypt was a good thing for Egyptians and for the civilised West (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.41-42 / printed p.32-33).
- Said’s reading: two great themes dominate the speech, knowledge and power; British knowledge of Egypt is Egypt for Balfour, who takes British superiority and Egyptian inferiority for granted, produces no evidence that Egyptians appreciate the occupation, and speaks for the English, the civilized world, the West, the colonial officials and, in effect, the Orientals themselves as a subject race (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.41-44 / printed p.32-35).
- On July 30, 1907, Balfour supported a retirement prize of fifty thousand pounds for Lord Cromer, saying Cromer’s services had raised Egypt from the lowest pitch of social and economic degradation to stand alone among Oriental nations in its prosperity, financial and moral (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.44 / printed p.35).
Related pages
Orientalism (1978), Lord Cromer, Orientalism, Balfour Declaration