Hirah Azhar's Avatar

Hirah Azhar

@herazhar.bsky.social

Doctoral researcher at University of Southampton and Imperial War Museum | War & influence in digital age | Prev: York + LSE, πŸ—žοΈ, CVE policy | Sandwiches, cats, duvet caves | Really just all over the place | Views mine

1,029 Followers  |  363 Following  |  33 Posts  |  Joined: 26.07.2023  |  1.8082

Latest posts by herazhar.bsky.social on Bluesky

A complete stranger pointed at me and shouted β€œdirty little socialist!” when I was parking my car this morning.
I am, yes, but how does he know???

24.10.2025 10:34 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Introducing "The War We See", my podcast on the history of war imagery, feat. conversations w/ some truly excellent guests. Trailer’s out today & first episode drops on the 24th. Pls give it a listen + subscribe/share if it’s of interest!
Spotify: lnkd.in/d4y4_-TT
Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/dHkgp-Mg

17.09.2025 16:25 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

AI’s been an amazing case study disproving the concept of supply and demand

23.07.2025 16:16 β€” πŸ‘ 26    πŸ” 11    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 1

There's something otherworldly about forced starvation. It's not explicitly violent. It's slower, more systematic. It kills differently, depending on your physiology. It is so unbelievably cruel, it defies understanding.

How can anyone bear this?

22.07.2025 19:31 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Every post about Palestinians in Gaza being systematically starved attracts a long line of the worst people you can imagine. Sneering, jeering, labelling everything "propaganda", denying what's visible & has been legitimately validated.
I can't comprehend this level of cruelty.

20.07.2025 18:34 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

interesting thing about the ai discourse is that you will say "companies pumped a trillion into glorified chatbots" and get the answer of "well ai will revolutionize medical diagnosis/chem research etc" and its like ok but those companies didnt fund those, they very pointedly funded the chatbots

20.07.2025 00:25 β€” πŸ‘ 545    πŸ” 183    πŸ’¬ 12    πŸ“Œ 5

here we go again with the heavily fetishised bombing of brown people

22.06.2025 02:09 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

They were careless people, they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.

22.06.2025 01:30 β€” πŸ‘ 83    πŸ” 20    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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UK Home Office tells parents their children should return to Brazil alone While Ana Luiza Cabral Gouveia and Hugo Barbosa can remain, letter says sons, 11 and eight, must go back to Brazil

I do genuinely think that if a lot of people knew just quite how horrendous and inhumane the UK's immigration system is there would be fewer people claiming that it needs to be made harsher. Not all obviously, but a number. Too many don't pay attention though.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

19.06.2025 08:19 β€” πŸ‘ 116    πŸ” 36    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 3
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Trump demands Iran’s β€˜unconditional surrender’ and says US won’t kill supreme leader β€˜for now’ – latest updates US president says Ayatollah Khamenei is β€˜easy target’ and suggests US β€˜patience is wearing thin’

who the fuck are you to demand anything

17.06.2025 21:09 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
""Frankly, we have imported antisemitism with the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz blamed the rise in antisemitism on migrants, calling it a "terrible challenge" for the country."

""Frankly, we have imported antisemitism with the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years." German Chancellor Friedrich Merz blamed the rise in antisemitism on migrants, calling it a "terrible challenge" for the country."

If you stop thinking that Germany's response to anything Israel is about Holocaust guilt and instead about rewriting German history, you'd understand German politics better. 🧡

09.06.2025 11:06 β€” πŸ‘ 1224    πŸ” 485    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 68

Every day, good people desperately push the limits of how they tell the story of this genocide so that those with power can finally be moved to take action. The question then is not β€œwhy won’t you do anything?” but β€œhow do I dismantle the system that gives people like you control?”

29.05.2025 14:36 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

What else should I care about when a population is being deliberately pummelled and starved in this brazen, shameful dismantling of international law, norms, and basic human decency?

β€œThis is what our ruling class has decided will be normal".

18.05.2025 19:31 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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It messes with my brain so much that there is widespread consensus on the active genocide in Gaza, but then... nothing. More death, more hunger, more trauma. I hope this photo & thousands more haunt those with the power to enforce change until their last breath.

(Anadolu/Getty)

16.05.2025 10:24 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Please can someone tell me how one is meant to joyously assimilate into British society when all public discourse, every bleeding moment, tells us we’re not wanted, we need to be disincentivised from staying & crueler, harsher policies are needed to make us leave & keep us out?

13.05.2025 08:36 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...

A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...

On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,

"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"

Allow our scaled diagram to explain...

15.04.2025 08:21 β€” πŸ‘ 13193    πŸ” 5359    πŸ’¬ 217    πŸ“Œ 1318

Jesus Christ can’t you people just let millennials express some entirely deserved outrage and anger over getting hit with yet another major financial crisis without parachuting in to finger wag at us about it

03.04.2025 20:58 β€” πŸ‘ 5550    πŸ” 745    πŸ’¬ 140    πŸ“Œ 116

Some days I think we didn't mourn the death of print media as long and as hard as we perhaps needed to.

23.03.2025 14:28 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Tech bros cheering on the cuts to grant funding built businesses and wealth on the back of decades of university R&D work. Much of that knowledge was given away to the public. This is basic pulling-up-the-ladder nonsense via rewriting history. They owe the public, not the other way around.

08.02.2025 18:16 β€” πŸ‘ 682    πŸ” 212    πŸ’¬ 11    πŸ“Œ 9

OpenAI complaining about Deepseek: oh horrors, the plagiarism machine got plagiarised.

29.01.2025 08:59 β€” πŸ‘ 82    πŸ” 7    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Egypt's Sisi rejects transfer of Gazans, discusses aid with Biden President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Wednesday that Egyptians in their millions would reject the forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai, adding that any such move would turn the Egyptian peninsula into a base for attacks against Israel.

Worth noting that Biden also wanted to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Most of the Jordanians I interviewed at all levels at the time always thought this was the endgame of the Abraham Accords paradigm...

www.reuters.com/world/egypt-...

26.01.2025 07:56 β€” πŸ‘ 20    πŸ” 11    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 2

Disgraceful bigotry at play.

Badenoch and her fellow dog whistlers would do well to spend time talking to people working at Women's Aid and Rape Crisis.

She would find there is a 'rape culture' here which needs addressing.

Her government cut community funding which worked to change attitudes.

26.01.2025 10:40 β€” πŸ‘ 27    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Hard to overstate just how much of the tech industry’s horrifically dystopian present grew right out of its transparently misogynistic past

10.01.2025 19:44 β€” πŸ‘ 14362    πŸ” 2471    πŸ’¬ 170    πŸ“Œ 86

70k tons of bombs dropped on Gaza. Millions displaced. Millions traumatized by injury, arrest & loss. Astronomical no. of people killed.

And this genocide is sullying its third calendar year. What a failure we are as a species.

Peace is an empty word. May the new year bring justice.

01.01.2025 00:22 β€” πŸ‘ 205    πŸ” 87    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 4

This is excellent πŸ‘‡

If you haven't had the chance to watch this lecture or read the article version yet, it is well worth your time.

17.12.2024 11:37 β€” πŸ‘ 53    πŸ” 23    πŸ’¬ 7    πŸ“Œ 1

Too much of a procrastinator to start; too much of a perfectionist to finish

09.12.2024 18:22 β€” πŸ‘ 56    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 3

No sleep tonight as Syria frees itself πŸ’šπŸ’š

08.12.2024 02:06 β€” πŸ‘ 11    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza Revealed Through Evidence and Analysis
YouTube video by Amnesty International Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza Revealed Through Evidence and Analysis
07.12.2024 14:16 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The NYT tech reporters who actually cover Musk and his businesses the most don’t parrot his PR and propaganda like this.

Unfortunately it’s another hallmark of the politics desk.

07.12.2024 13:35 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

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