Mehmed Ali had no problems with this kind of logic and, keen as he was to follow the models he was borrowing from, he was aware of the practical problems he had to contend with. Similarly, impressive and spectacular as he might have found his new army, he was not bound by its visual order nor was he taken in by its spectacles. For example, when in 1824 he detected signs of a serious mutiny among his newly founded army he knew that he had to take some drastic measures to deal decisively with such an alarming situation. In doing so he showed that he understood something about the effect that orderly spectacles had, but that he was not bound by the idea of order that informed them, nor by the principle of “cynical,” diffuse power (in the manner used by Foucault) that is also linked to them. For he then ordered all the soldiers of the regiment in question (the 1st Regiment that was on its way to Sudan) to stand in a row and every tenth soldier to step out of line. The soldiers thus selected would then form a line of their own and be shot in front of their colleagues “to be an example to others.”

Builds on: "Egyptian governors' propaganda tours augmented the army's deterrence value."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 919