William Monk
@williamcm7.bsky.social
Archivist and amateur translator. Interested in: West Asia and North Africa, especially Iran; France; Italy; Australia; India; Germany, and Brazil.
🍉
Views my own, etc.
🍉
Views my own, etc.
Reposted by William Monk
So, so far we have:
1. Everyone except Israel agreeing there was no Iranian bomb, & that negotiations to stop enrichment were progressing;
2. Israel launching an attack on 13 June;
3. US DoD now saying THEY had been planning an attack for "weeks/months";
4. Everyone pretending there was a bomb.
1. Everyone except Israel agreeing there was no Iranian bomb, & that negotiations to stop enrichment were progressing;
2. Israel launching an attack on 13 June;
3. US DoD now saying THEY had been planning an attack for "weeks/months";
4. Everyone pretending there was a bomb.
June 22, 2025 at 12:23 PM
So, so far we have:
1. Everyone except Israel agreeing there was no Iranian bomb, & that negotiations to stop enrichment were progressing;
2. Israel launching an attack on 13 June;
3. US DoD now saying THEY had been planning an attack for "weeks/months";
4. Everyone pretending there was a bomb.
1. Everyone except Israel agreeing there was no Iranian bomb, & that negotiations to stop enrichment were progressing;
2. Israel launching an attack on 13 June;
3. US DoD now saying THEY had been planning an attack for "weeks/months";
4. Everyone pretending there was a bomb.
Reposted by William Monk
If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business.
You’re in organized crime.
You’re in organized crime.
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.
buff.ly
May 26, 2025 at 9:09 PM
If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business.
You’re in organized crime.
You’re in organized crime.
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.
All Australian (and New Zealand, Canadian, US...) cinema and literature takes place within a settler-colonial frame.
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....
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....
Popular Modernism, Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Australian New Wave: The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and Gallipoli (1981)
Dominant narratives of the Australian New Wave tend to frame the efflorescence of national filmmaking in the 1970s through the lens of Gough Whitlam’s brand of cultural nationalism. The narrative u...
www.tandfonline.com
May 17, 2025 at 10:50 PM
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.
All Australian (and New Zealand, Canadian, US...) cinema and literature takes place within a settler-colonial frame.
Reposted by William Monk
"The government's argument sounds plausible. There's just one problem. It doesn't fit the facts. And the government knows it."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
There’s only one problem with Labour’s immigration plans: they’re completely untethered from reality | Jonathan Portes
The government’s new policy will take us back to an uglier, more dangerous place – and it’s not even supported by the data, says professor of public policy Jonathan Portes
www.theguardian.com
May 13, 2025 at 2:01 PM
"The government's argument sounds plausible. There's just one problem. It doesn't fit the facts. And the government knows it."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by William Monk
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
May 12, 2025 at 12:43 PM
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
'Immigration bad'. Self-harming policies for a media spectacle of cruelty, just to flaunt some numbers in a spreadsheet and boast 'net migration down'.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social is incompetent and worthless.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social is incompetent and worthless.
Starmer echoing Powell on 'strangers', the references to Birmingham, to lack of 'integration' and speaking English. It's such a despicable mix of all the worst parts of racism over the last half century. Even the way they upload his script, a desperate media spectacle www.gov.uk/government/s...
PM remarks at Immigration White Paper press conference: 12 May 2025
Prime Minister Keir Starmer's remarks at a press conference on the Immigration White Paper.
www.gov.uk
May 12, 2025 at 3:47 PM
'Immigration bad'. Self-harming policies for a media spectacle of cruelty, just to flaunt some numbers in a spreadsheet and boast 'net migration down'.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social is incompetent and worthless.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social is incompetent and worthless.
'Immigration bad'. Destroy universities destroy science, destroy social care, so they can flaunt some numbers in a spreadsheet and boast 'net migration down'.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social are a totally incompetent, worthless government.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social are a totally incompetent, worthless government.
I hate that 'immigration bad' is the fundament of all UK politics. Xenophobic, insular, arrogant politics have taken so many opportunities, so many richer lives that might have been lived, from me and so many others. Now Labour want to impoverish us further just so they can say 'net migration down'.
Would very much like “heading off the threat of Reform/Farage” to STOP being the way government decides on policy. It’s done nothing but profound harm since 2016 and Farage is still going strong. It doesn’t work for anyone, except him.
on.ft.com/42eewsY
on.ft.com/42eewsY
May 11, 2025 at 1:06 PM
'Immigration bad'. Destroy universities destroy science, destroy social care, so they can flaunt some numbers in a spreadsheet and boast 'net migration down'.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social are a totally incompetent, worthless government.
@teamlabouruk.bsky.social are a totally incompetent, worthless government.
Sooner or later, another Behrouz Boochani will emerge from Rwanda or El Salvador to roar truth to this despicable regime.
SCOOP — The US sent Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen to Rwanda via new diplomatic relationship in which they've agreed to act as a "third country" for deportees unable to be safely returned to their country of origin, per cables reviewed by me.
This is first reported instance. Cable indicates more to come.
This is first reported instance. Cable indicates more to come.
US “relocates” Iraqi refugee to Rwanda via new diplomatic arrangement
A State Department cable indicates at least 10 more people will be subjected to the same.
www.thehandbasket.co
April 22, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Sooner or later, another Behrouz Boochani will emerge from Rwanda or El Salvador to roar truth to this despicable regime.
The UK will survive US tarrifs. It will not survive the legitimisation of hate.
No to a trade deal with Trump and Vance's USA that is not a credible or reliable ally or friend.
No to a politics of cowardice dictated by net migration figures.
Yes to Europe.
No to a trade deal with Trump and Vance's USA that is not a credible or reliable ally or friend.
No to a politics of cowardice dictated by net migration figures.
Yes to Europe.
April 16, 2025 at 6:48 PM
The UK will survive US tarrifs. It will not survive the legitimisation of hate.
No to a trade deal with Trump and Vance's USA that is not a credible or reliable ally or friend.
No to a politics of cowardice dictated by net migration figures.
Yes to Europe.
No to a trade deal with Trump and Vance's USA that is not a credible or reliable ally or friend.
No to a politics of cowardice dictated by net migration figures.
Yes to Europe.
Honestly the best analogy I've heard.
We're playing on Sid, with Most Aggressive AI and Raging barbarians.
We're playing on Sid, with Most Aggressive AI and Raging barbarians.
I think the US's death drive is explained by the fact that it's at the end of a game of Civilization III where it's objectively lightyears ahead of earlier iterations of its faction but it's not as fun because it's all about cleaning up pollution instead of expanding and building infrastructure
April 13, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Honestly the best analogy I've heard.
We're playing on Sid, with Most Aggressive AI and Raging barbarians.
We're playing on Sid, with Most Aggressive AI and Raging barbarians.
I hate that 'immigration bad' is the fundament of all UK politics. Xenophobic, insular, arrogant politics have taken so many opportunities, so many richer lives that might have been lived, from me and so many others. Now Labour want to impoverish us further just so they can say 'net migration down'.
Would very much like “heading off the threat of Reform/Farage” to STOP being the way government decides on policy. It’s done nothing but profound harm since 2016 and Farage is still going strong. It doesn’t work for anyone, except him.
on.ft.com/42eewsY
on.ft.com/42eewsY
April 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
I hate that 'immigration bad' is the fundament of all UK politics. Xenophobic, insular, arrogant politics have taken so many opportunities, so many richer lives that might have been lived, from me and so many others. Now Labour want to impoverish us further just so they can say 'net migration down'.
You cannot bomb and murder your way to the acceptance of occupation and apartheid in West Asia, to the acceptance of the subjugation of an entire people.
March 18, 2025 at 6:26 PM
You cannot bomb and murder your way to the acceptance of occupation and apartheid in West Asia, to the acceptance of the subjugation of an entire people.
Dedicating Fabrizio de André's beautiful song about May 1968 to Mahmoud Khalil. With a warning to every spineless politician and administrator who let his disappearance happen:
'No matter how much you think you've absorbed yourselves, you'll always be complicit.'
youtu.be/l2D1lSLvo8c?...
'No matter how much you think you've absorbed yourselves, you'll always be complicit.'
youtu.be/l2D1lSLvo8c?...
Canzone del maggio (Liberamente tratta da un canto del maggio francese 1968)
YouTube video by Fabrizio De André - Topic
youtu.be
March 10, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Dedicating Fabrizio de André's beautiful song about May 1968 to Mahmoud Khalil. With a warning to every spineless politician and administrator who let his disappearance happen:
'No matter how much you think you've absorbed yourselves, you'll always be complicit.'
youtu.be/l2D1lSLvo8c?...
'No matter how much you think you've absorbed yourselves, you'll always be complicit.'
youtu.be/l2D1lSLvo8c?...
The war on Palestinians' freedom and sovereignty is also a war on books, as on history, heritage, memory, and so much else besides.
The Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem has been raided by Israeli security forces. Mahmoud and Ahmad Mina have been taken to custody. Anyone who’s visited Palestine knows how serious this is for freedom of speech and cultural organising in Palestine and Israel.
February 9, 2025 at 11:42 PM
The war on Palestinians' freedom and sovereignty is also a war on books, as on history, heritage, memory, and so much else besides.
Still this cheapness placed on Palestinian/Arab/Muslim lives. Still the arrogant assumption in the West that we can go into the Middle East at will and rearrange things to suit our interests, without a thought for Middle Eastern people, lives, let alone sovereignty.
US acts like Palestinians can just be "moved" like they're cargo. Moving requires violence, killing, starvation, genocide. That's what "moving" is.
February 6, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Still this cheapness placed on Palestinian/Arab/Muslim lives. Still the arrogant assumption in the West that we can go into the Middle East at will and rearrange things to suit our interests, without a thought for Middle Eastern people, lives, let alone sovereignty.
Reposted by William Monk
It was always obvious that the right-wing moral panic around universities had nothing to do with "free speech". It was about delegitimising critical & dissenting intellectual activity, with a view to suppressing it altogether. Far too many liberals were taken in by this transparent, reactionary scam
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
February 4, 2025 at 10:40 AM
It was always obvious that the right-wing moral panic around universities had nothing to do with "free speech". It was about delegitimising critical & dissenting intellectual activity, with a view to suppressing it altogether. Far too many liberals were taken in by this transparent, reactionary scam
Reposted by William Monk
The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...
End of Term Web Archive – Preserving the Transition of a Nation | Internet Archive Blogs
blog.archive.org
February 1, 2025 at 12:58 AM
The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...
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.
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?
January 5, 2025 at 11:42 PM
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.
Reposted by William Monk
The last photo of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, detained after refusing to abandon his colleagues and patients.
In just one image, we see both the power of Palestinian humanity and the moral weakness of all those complicit in genocide.
End all arms sales to Israel, now.
In just one image, we see both the power of Palestinian humanity and the moral weakness of all those complicit in genocide.
End all arms sales to Israel, now.
December 29, 2024 at 11:53 AM
The last photo of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, detained after refusing to abandon his colleagues and patients.
In just one image, we see both the power of Palestinian humanity and the moral weakness of all those complicit in genocide.
End all arms sales to Israel, now.
In just one image, we see both the power of Palestinian humanity and the moral weakness of all those complicit in genocide.
End all arms sales to Israel, now.
Reposted by William Monk
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.
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.
December 7, 2024 at 4:35 PM
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.
Thoughts are with Syrians as the long nightmare of Assad's tyranny looks set finally to come to an end.
Let us hope that what comes next can be a flourishing, free, pluralist, sovereign Syria whose future is decided by and for Syrians alone, not by the geopolitical schemes and 'security' of others.
Let us hope that what comes next can be a flourishing, free, pluralist, sovereign Syria whose future is decided by and for Syrians alone, not by the geopolitical schemes and 'security' of others.
December 7, 2024 at 6:10 PM
Thoughts are with Syrians as the long nightmare of Assad's tyranny looks set finally to come to an end.
Let us hope that what comes next can be a flourishing, free, pluralist, sovereign Syria whose future is decided by and for Syrians alone, not by the geopolitical schemes and 'security' of others.
Let us hope that what comes next can be a flourishing, free, pluralist, sovereign Syria whose future is decided by and for Syrians alone, not by the geopolitical schemes and 'security' of others.
Reposted by William Monk
Thanks for putting this together!
Does anyone have suggestions for where to start reading about German colonialism as someone new to it?
Does anyone have suggestions for where to start reading about German colonialism as someone new to it?
November 30, 2024 at 3:30 PM
Thanks for putting this together!
Does anyone have suggestions for where to start reading about German colonialism as someone new to it?
Does anyone have suggestions for where to start reading about German colonialism as someone new to it?
Reposted by William Monk
Today is the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
Finding Aid: Sources on Palestine | Qatar Digital Library
For over a hundred years, in tandem with the colonisation of Palestinian land, Palestinian history has been systematically erased, suppressed, and distorted. The QDL however contains multiple sources ...
www.qdl.qa
November 29, 2024 at 12:47 PM
Today is the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
Today is the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
Finding Aid: Sources on Palestine | Qatar Digital Library
For over a hundred years, in tandem with the colonisation of Palestinian land, Palestinian history has been systematically erased, suppressed, and distorted. The QDL however contains multiple sources ...
www.qdl.qa
November 29, 2024 at 12:47 PM
Today is the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...
3 years ago, I wrote this article highlighting digitised records on Palestine and Palestinians from the British Library's India Office Records, with invaluable help from Palestinian colleagues:
www.qdl.qa/en/finding-a...