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William Monk

@williamcm7.bsky.social

Archivist and amateur translator. Interested in: West Asia and North Africa, especially Iran; the post-Soviet space; France; Italy; Australia; India; Germany. Views my own, etc.

23 Posts157 Follower292 Folgt
William Monk@williamcm7.bsky.social · last mo.

This 4th of July, here's an article I wrote on how the news of US independence was carried from Europe to India in 1783 - through a blockade and a war zone in the Persian Gulf. www.qdl.qa/en/basra-ove... The article draws on digitised archival sources from the British Library's India Office Records

The Basra Overland Mail: Conveying news of American Independence through the Gulf, 1783 | Qatar Digital Library

For centuries, the Gulf has been a crucial axis of global communication. This was certainly the case in 1783 when news of American Independence travelled to India.

qdl.qa

Strategic Tape Reserve@strategictaper.bsky.social · 2mo ago

They should build loads of data centers all over the place that contain huge quantities of books that people can borrow for free if they fill out a form to get a data center card and promise to return the books on time and don’t make too much noise in the data center.

William Monk@williamcm7.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Happy Nowrouz to all celebrating. How many centuries has Nowrouz survived, through how many wars; how many oppressors has it outlived? When this war of aggression is over, when all tyrants inside and outside Iran will have fallen, Nowrouz and Iranian culture will live on. نوروز پیروز

Heba Gowayed هبة جويد@hebagowayed.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I am pro Iranian people. I stand with them against their own government’s repression AND against the imperial violence in the form of bombs dropped from the sky from Israel & the US who have already killed hundreds. I support neither imperialism or dictatorship. Sahar Delijani said it best:

I was born in an Iranian prison. My parents were held in their jails. My uncles lie in their mass graves. Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood and bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after. Sahar Delijani, Iranian author
William Monk@williamcm7.bsky.social · 7mo ago

"The world of high imperialism is coming back, not the bipolar world." How right @juergenzimmerer.bsky.social was.

Jürgen Zimmerer@juergenzimmerer.bsky.social · 2y ago

Die Welt des Hochimperialismus kommt zurück, nicht die bipolare. Wie absurd, dass Hamburg Senat gerade jetzt @coloniallegacy.bsky.social auflöst. Gerade jetzt braucht es krit. Auseinandersetzung mit dem Imperialismus, seinen Ursachen und Folgen. Auch seiner globalen Katastrophe in den Weltkriegen.

William Monk@williamcm7.bsky.social · last yr.

A shower thought that once came to me: All Australian (and New Zealand, Canadian, US...) cinema and literature takes place within a settler-colonial frame.

Stephen Morgan@drsmorgan.com · last yr.

A short thread, sparked by this article, which contains lots of interesting stuff, but... It's nuts to talk about cinema and cultural nationalism in places like Australia without even mentioning the nation's very foundations in settler colonialism, no? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Tom Ewing@tomewing.bsky.social · last yr.

Describing the multicultural society you are supposedly leading with language like “squalid”, “failed experiment”, “island of strangers” is even with the most bend over backwards generous spin, just horrifyingly irresponsible and inflammatory

William Monk@williamcm7.bsky.social · 2y ago

Loved Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - the first 'adult' book I ever really enjoyed. Quite liked Edgar Allen Poe's stories, Death of A Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Macbeth. Don't think I hated anything, but found Romeo and Juliet tedious and never got what was going on in The Big Sleep.

Tenebrous Press@tenebrouspress.bsky.social · 2y ago

US and UK friends, I'm curious: What books were part of your required reading for highschool literature class? Which of them do you remember loving, and which did you loathe?

Wendy Pearlman@wendy-pearlman.bsky.social · 2y ago

Let Syrians have the chance to access these documents & understand decades of despotic rule. Let a generation of Syrian scholars study these documents & make sense of how the regime survived. Let the Assad regime, like other dictatorships, be reduced to an object of historical research.

Amer matar عامر مطر@amermatar.bsky.social · 2y ago

This video showcases the documentation files kept on every family in the city of Sweida in southern Syria. Each family has its own report and file maintained by the Political Security Branch in Sweida.