Not that the authorities were helpless in confronting these repeated acts of resistance and defiance; as we have seen, the Pasha and his officials passed numerous decrees to curb the phenomenon of desertion and to punish all acts of insurrection that they found most alarming and undermining to the whole performance of the entire army. Power, in other words, as much as it attempts to silence, to be all-inclusive and to penetrate minds and control bodies, is always constantly negotiated, suspended, and resisted.

XREF: Connects to earlier claims about resistance (loc 92, 460, 471, 593, 1306) showing that despite coercive decrees, power was never totalizing. Builds on: "Conscription's resistance forced Egypt's shift to subtle control techniques."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1667