Doctor๐ฉ๐ปโโ๏ธ | PhD on
#LebaneseCivilWar
| Postdoc
@warstudies
by day, Arabic Literature by night | โฅ๏ธ in Syria | Halawet el-jibin analyst | No views are my own
๐ ITโS OUT ๐
My article โBetween Invertible and Invertebrate Histories: The Evolution of Rachid Boudjedraโs Snail-Manโ has been published by Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics.
Huge thank you to
@izzaziad
who edited this special issue ๐
Cats fully understand Arabic and are, as evidenced in this video, more than capable of engaging with a sermon on Ramadan virtues.
Humans, on the other hand, still copy ุฑู ุถุงู ูุฑูู from Google Translate ๐คญ
Remembering Khaled Al-Asaad,
#Syria
โs irreplaceable archaeologist, who was beheaded by ISIS on this day in 2015. He worked as head of
#Palmyra
โs antiquities for over 50 years and chose to give up his life to protect the ancient city he loved.
Why do native speakers of Arabic get significantly less praise for writing whole PhDs in English than English speakers do for learning two hardly intelligible sentences in Arabic? ๐
Frontex has released new images of the refugee ship that sank off the coast of Greece. The time frame in which the images of the ship were recorded shows that the ship was under Frontex surveillance hours before it sank. The Greek Coast Guard is also being informed.
According toโฆ
Some Afghans do have blue eyes. For example, this local fighter from eastern
#Afghanistan
who wanted a selfie with me when reporting from his area in late July.
ISIS seized Palmyra in May, earlier that year. They reduced thousands of years of history into rubble within seconds. Some of the sites they blew up include Temple of Bel, Temple of Baalshamin, Arc of Triumph, and the tetrapylon.
The victim blaming in the community note is abhorrent: โthey refused our help so we just let them drownโ.
The Sunday Times interviewed some of the survivors. This is what they had to say ๐
When Khaled Al-Asaad refused to lead ISIS to Palmyraโs hidden valuable antiquities, they executed him and hung his mutilated body in public, in one of the cityโs squares. His remains are yet to be found.
Photo of Syrian Thaer al-Rahal and his 4 year old son Khalid who was diagnosed with leukaemia last year and needed a bone-marrow transplant.
Thaer drowned trying to get to Europe to earn money and save his sonโs life.
Beyond tragic!
โThe story of howโฆ 750 migrants [ended] up in one of the Mediterraneanโs deadliest shipwrecks is bigger than any one of the victims. But for everyone, it started somewhere, and for Thaer Khalid al-Rahal it started with cancer.โ
Just incredible reporting
There isnโt a day when I donโt think about this medic and the small baby and wonder whether theyโve survived the barbarity of the past six months.
I would love to know how this entire 18th century Damascene room - comprising six wall panels and four double doors - made it all the way from Syria to the UK.
On Mloukhie:
Stop mashing up your mloukhie leaves into liquid green sludge! Itโs not a soup and itโs not meant to look like one.
This ๐ This is nasty ๐
This video of a Lebanese lady playing the piano in her destroyed home is more useful and more relevant than all of the hot take articles already published on
#Beirut
in the last 24 hours.
โWe are writing to let you know that your GoFundMe account has been closed due to sanctions involving an unsupported country [
#Syria
] & a violation of the Prohibited Conduct section of our Terms of Service.โ
Show this to whoever tells you sanctions donโt affect ordinary Syrians.
Iโve been following the work of
#Iraqi
artists for quite a long time. Their work has an unparalleled elegance and a spirit I am in love with ๐๐
So - every Saturday, Iโll grace your timeline with the art of a favourite ๐ชโจ
This will be an ongoing thread ๐
1๏ธโฃ Wasmaa Al-Agha
Lebanon is starting to look like one of those unstable police states in the west. Shocking scenes! One has to be reminded that this is not France or the US ๐
Nothing annoys
#Syria
experts more than a petition to remove the sanctions illegally punishing the Syrian people. Look at all those massive threads on why itโs such a bad idea for Syrians to - god forbid - have electricity for 48 hours.. ุนู ููู ู ุง ูุทููู ุดู ุนุฑู ุฃูุช ู ูุงูุง
Iโm writing an article on tea in popular
#Iraqi
culture, and itโs been so much fun so far. Here are a few paintings by some of the Iraqi artists Iโve been writing about.
If you know of any other examples I should include, let me know and I will ๐ซ๐งต
After zaatar, pistachio is the second best thing to ever happen to croissants.
Also, there was this place in Latakia which made incredible pizza croissants, upsetting both the Italian and the French in one go ๐ Third place goes to that!
While we are on the subject of Arabic-speaking cats, here are five Arabic novels and short story collections in which cats play - as they should - a central role.
There are many more, but if you have any particular favourites, do add them ๐
#Thread
๐งต๐๐
According to SANA, one of the three bodies found near
#Palmyra
today is believed to be of
#Syrian
archaeologist Khaled Al-Asaad who was beheaded by ISIS for refusing to betray the ancient city.
The now destroyed 32AD Temple of Baal is one of his most famous restoration projects.
Thereโs a horrific video circulating of this child being brutally tortured as he lies on the ground screaming and begging his kidnappers to stop. 6 years old Fawaz was kidnapped in
#Daraa
and has reportedly been missing for months. ุบุงุจุฉ ูุง ุณูุฑูุง..
#ุงูุทูู_ููุงุฒ
#ุงููุฐูุง_ููุงุฒ_ูุทููุงู
โMy thoughts are with the people of Syria, as long as they donโt attempt to come to the UK. We have blocked every possible immigration route so they now either drown in the Mediterranean or die of hypothermia in refugee camps. The UK stands ready to help in whatever way we can.โ
My thoughts are with the people of Tรผrkiye and Syria this morning, particularly with those first responders working so valiantly to save those trapped by the earthquake.
The UK stands ready to help in whatever way we can.
@SecBlinken
Describing what Israeli occupation forces did to the Palestinian mourners as โintrudingโ makes it sound like it was all no more than just a minor inconvenience.
Ladies & gentlemen, I present to you Dr Madonna Kalousian.
Passed viva today with no corrections ๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐ป๐๐ป๐ฅ๐พ๐
HUGE thank you to my supervisor Dr Lindsey Moore (
@PocoLCMoore
) and to my examiners Prof Ziad Elmarsafy (
@izzaziad
) and Prof Arthur Bradley for an amazing viva ๐๐ป
If you see anybody sharing that famous photograph of Edward Said throwing a stone, please let me know. I would like to show them these three pages from Najla Saidโs memoir in which she tells the real story behind the photo ๐
Incomprehensible levels of devastation, despair, and suffering in
#Aleppo
. Itโs -4ยฐc tonight and people are still under the rubble and still digging with their bare hands.
In
#Aleppo
and
#Idlib
, the UN flag now flies upside down over the rubble in condemnation of its morally indefensible absence of effective humanitarian action. Seven days on and the UN continues to make up false narratives of โpolitical complexityโ and โlogistical barriersโ.
This afternoon, I would like to dedicate a flying ุดุญุงุทุฉ to academics who come here to announce how thrilled they are with their publications on
#Palestine
, but who choose to remain silent on Israeli land theft and real-time ethnic cleaning operations against the Palestinians.
Arabic for written emails is a whole other language. You donโt want to sound pretentious so you donโt use fusha, and you donโt want to sound too casual so you ditch your ditsy shami. The balance between the two is so artificial and cringy. Why are people normalising this? ๐ญ
Very, very sad that Nawal El-Saadawi has just passed away ๐ What a loss!
Photo of her in Tahrir Square in 2011.. She showed up with a pen and paper.
I believe the survivors & not the spokesperson of a complicit institution, but let me repeat this for the lies of the community note Twitter attached to my earlier tweet:
๐ฃ the Greek coastguard capsized the boat, moved away & watched for 20 minutes while people were drowning ๐ฃ
Testimonies of the survivors of
#Pylos
appear to confirm the worse. Not only did the ropes of the coast guard capsize the boat but after, they moved away and observed for 20 min while people were drowning. This and more in a
@WELTAMSONNTAG
investigation.