Representations of Ahmed Urabi: Hegemony, Imperialism, and the British Press, 1881–1882

Over the course of 1881–82, carefully constructed images of Ahmed Urabi became the face of the Anglo-Egyptian crisis in the British press. Images and descriptions of Urabi were portrayed to the British public as both the cause and symptom of the Egyptian people’s inability to govern themselves. Direct references to Urabi and his actions were framed by articles and illustrations that indirectly depicted Egypt and Egyptians in absolute opposition to British self-conceptions. The imagined Urabi constructed in the British press was central to contemporary British press accounts of events leading to the invasion of Egypt.