Hirah Azhar
@herazhar.bsky.social
Doctoral researcher at University of Southampton and Imperial War Museum | War & influence in digital age | Prev: York + LSE, 🗞️, CVE policy | Sandwiches, cats, duvet caves | Really just all over the place | Views mine
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
New Blog by Hirah Azhar generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/history/2025...
The War We See podcast: Conversations about War Imagery
Author Hirah Azhar, Doctoral researcher in the Department of History, University of Southampton and Imperial War Museum Blog Who decides what we see of war? What is censored, erased, or amplified? …
generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk
November 10, 2025 at 3:16 PM
New Blog by Hirah Azhar generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/history/2025...
Ep 5 of The War We See out today! Delighted to talk to Rebecca Newell, Head of Art at the IWM about war art, the evolving role of the war artist & questions around documentation, representation & access.
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1lTD...
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1lTD...
November 19, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Ep 5 of The War We See out today! Delighted to talk to Rebecca Newell, Head of Art at the IWM about war art, the evolving role of the war artist & questions around documentation, representation & access.
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1lTD...
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1lTD...
A complete stranger pointed at me and shouted “dirty little socialist!” when I was parking my car this morning.
I am, yes, but how does he know???
I am, yes, but how does he know???
October 24, 2025 at 10:34 AM
A complete stranger pointed at me and shouted “dirty little socialist!” when I was parking my car this morning.
I am, yes, but how does he know???
I am, yes, but how does he know???
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
Spotify: lnkd.in/d4y4_-TT
Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/dHkgp-Mg
September 17, 2025 at 4:25 PM
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
Spotify: lnkd.in/d4y4_-TT
Apple Podcasts: lnkd.in/dHkgp-Mg
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
AI’s been an amazing case study disproving the concept of supply and demand
Big tech promotes the story that since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, AI has been so popular it's rushed to meet the demand. The reality is different. A study by design scholars shows tech co's have had to push AI on its users with a variety of intrusive tactics.
How big tech is force-feeding us AI:
How big tech is force-feeding us AI:
How big tech is force-feeding us AI
Plus, OpenAI's absurd listening tour, top AI scientists say AI is evolving beyond our control, Facebook is putting data centers in tents, and the AI bubble question — answered?
www.bloodinthemachine.com
July 23, 2025 at 4:16 PM
AI’s been an amazing case study disproving the concept of supply and demand
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?
How can anyone bear this?
July 22, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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?
How can anyone bear this?
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.
I can't comprehend this level of cruelty.
July 20, 2025 at 6:34 PM
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.
I can't comprehend this level of cruelty.
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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
July 20, 2025 at 12:25 AM
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
here we go again with the heavily fetishised bombing of brown people
June 22, 2025 at 2:09 AM
here we go again with the heavily fetishised bombing of brown people
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
They were careless people, they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.
They have made the world living hell for no reason whatsoever. People will ask why this happened in a decade and there will be tremendous effort to make it more complicated than “they were evil, stupid, and bored”
June 22, 2025 at 1:30 AM
They were careless people, they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
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
www.theguardian.com
June 19, 2025 at 8:19 AM
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...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
who the fuck are you to demand anything
Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ and says US won’t kill supreme leader ‘for now’ – latest updates
US president says Ayatollah Khamenei is ‘easy target’ and suggests US ‘patience is wearing thin’
www.theguardian.com
June 17, 2025 at 9:09 PM
who the fuck are you to demand anything
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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. 🧵
June 9, 2025 at 11:06 AM
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. 🧵
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 “why won’t you do anything?” but “how do I dismantle the system that gives people like you control?”
May 29, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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 “why won’t you do anything?” but “how do I dismantle the system that gives people like you control?”
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?
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal".
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal".
May 18, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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?
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal".
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal".
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)
(Anadolu/Getty)
May 16, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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)
(Anadolu/Getty)
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?
May 13, 2025 at 8:36 AM
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?
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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...
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
April 15, 2025 at 8:21 AM
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...
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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
April 3, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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
Some days I think we didn't mourn the death of print media as long and as hard as we perhaps needed to.
March 23, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Some days I think we didn't mourn the death of print media as long and as hard as we perhaps needed to.
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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.
February 8, 2025 at 6:16 PM
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.
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
OpenAI complaining about Deepseek: oh horrors, the plagiarism machine got plagiarised.
January 29, 2025 at 8:59 AM
OpenAI complaining about Deepseek: oh horrors, the plagiarism machine got plagiarised.
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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-...
www.reuters.com/world/egypt-...
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.
www.reuters.com
January 26, 2025 at 7:56 AM
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-...
www.reuters.com/world/egypt-...
Reposted by Hirah Azhar
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.
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.
watching Sunday morning TV political panels: Badenoch inaccurately yet again talks about cultures of rape, links it to people from Pakistan, and all the political panel had to say is it is “outspoken” and “uncomfortable for some people”
Inaccurate and Islamophobic are the words you were looking for.
Inaccurate and Islamophobic are the words you were looking for.
January 26, 2025 at 10:40 AM
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.
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.