'Beginnings' Silverstreet Edition 3

Silverstreet Everything Human, Social and Political termly.

Third Edition - ‘Beginnings’

Editors’ note Welcome to Silverstreet, the student magazine dedicated to exploring and experiencing the human, social and political sciences in all their depth and diversity.

Urged onwards by the range of perspectives within the melting pot that is HSPS, we wanted to create a platform that showcased the resulting research, debates, and ideas from students and academics alike: encouraging a new dialogue across disciplines and indeed the university; beyond the structure of lectures and supervisions.

We bring news on cutting-edge developments in HSPS on your doorstep in Cambridge.

This is no elite, we want your ideas, we want your thoughts and opinions on a topic. If you want to join the Silverstreet team or just occasionally write for us, you would be more than welcome in what ever capacity.

Enjoy!

THE SILVERSTREET TEAM

Roisin Taylor Editor in Chief Writer Design

Harshadha Balasubramanian Secretary Editor Writer

Julie Hutchinson Editor Writer

Jess Farmery Editor Writer

Dani Ismailov Writer Design

Laura Schubert Editor Publicity

Lenny Cherry Editor Writer Publicity

IN THIS ISSUE ‘Start as you mean to go on.’

How our nutrition writes the script for our children's’ (and their children's’) phenotypes.

Lenny Cherry Its green and its beginning to spread Roisin Taylor Is there a beginning of Agriculture in East Asia?

Ellie Olcott Contemporary Cave Painting at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery: Beginning Painting Frankie Cherry A New Day Will Dawn Hina Khalid Bachkovo Monastery Bulgaria’s National Revivalist Art Roisin Taylor The Dawn of the Anthropocene Jess Farmery A New Beginning for South Sudan?

Alice Farmery The Offensive Freedom of the Internet: Dapper Laughs, Rape, and Internet Culture.

Williiam Stark

‘Start as you mean to go on.’

How our nutrition writes the script for our children's’ (and their children's’) phenotypes.

Lenny Cherry It is often assumed by laymen that they can do as they please because hey “It’s my life”. However, as the phenomenon of epigenetics is further investigated, it is becoming apparent that this ‘YOLO’ attitude isn’t a true reflection of reality. Rather, the way we live may imprint a phenotypic legacy on future generations. Scientists have therefore returned to the drawing board in an attempt to crack the puzzle of when our phenotypic journeys really begin.

In doing so, it is becoming increasingly recognised that there is a whole prologue of previously ignored past generations and in utero experiences that have a remarkable place in the story of our phenotypes.

Indeed Elizabeth Radford et al explain in their article, ‘In utero undernourishment perturbs the adult sperm methylome and intergenerational metabolism’, that an important time for the shaping of a phenotype is during one’s early life due to the phenotypic plasticity and the epigenetic influences present at this point along one’s development trajectory. Changes to the phenotype, which occur during this stage of development because of epigenetic markers, manifest themselves as alterations to gene expression.

These alterations occur through molecular mechanisms such as histone modification, DNA methylation and RNA transmission. Elizabeth Radford et al

Image from Nutrition Science Bites at

demonstrate the phenotypic outcome of such epigenetic markers throughout

nutritionsciencebites.wordpress.com

their article with reference to their study on mice and how the consequences of one undernourished parent mouse played out across the generations.

In brief: if an undernourished mouse gives birth to F1 generation they shall have a low birth weight and several metabolic defects which shall subsequently be passed on to F2 generation “even though the F1 mice did not experience postnatal environmental perturbation.” The F1 generation took on the metabolic defects because certain epigenetic alterations to the DNA in the mice embryos caused by the mother’s undernutrition persisted through a series of zygotic reprogrammings. In this instance, the F2 generation also took on these phenotypic characteristics because the primordial gamete cells inside the F1 generation embryos were also directly exposed to the mother’s undernutrition and hence the epigenetic effect of malnutrition becomes multigenerational. In utero environments are therefore not only relevant for the shaping of one generation’s phenotypes but also that of subsequent generations as well.

What goes for mice also goes for humans as far as the trans-generational epigenetic effects of nutrition are concerned. Indeed Wells et al remark in their article, ‘Re-examining heritability: genetics, plasticity and life history’, how maternal birth weight is responsible for approximately 10% of human foetal growth restriction which demonstrates that a low birth weight in one generation limits growth in subsequent generations. Monozygotic(MZ) twin studies also Dietmar Temps Flickr

shed light on how genetic inheritance is not the full picture. MZ twins share an identical genotype and yet intra-pair differences in weight are a

common occurrence at birth and sometimes persist into adulthood. How can this be when the twins’ genetic make-up is the same? It seems that subtly different in utero environments experienced by the twins at the start of their lives, expose them to different epigenetic influences which in turn alter certain metabolic traits of their phenotypes such as weight and stature.

Thus far we have seen how subtle interactions between maternal nutrition, in utero environments and the genotype significantly amend the phenotypic outcome of the individual. But how might populationwide nutritional patterns affect the phenotypic profile of a whole community? In light of this question Dr Bygren started investigating the effects of ‘bust and boom’ harvests in a small, isolated, Swedish village called Norrbotten. He wished to investigate if this sizeable variation in amysep Flickr

food intake had had any effect on the children growing up or even their children and grandchildren. Using historical records to trace ancestry

and meticulous agricultural records, scientists were able to calculate approximate food levels available to the people at differing times. Bygren’s research showed that the boys who had been faced by famine one season, followed by abundant food stocks the next, had sons and grandsons who lived shorter lives. Once Bygren had factored in socio economic variations, the difference in longevity between the sons and grandsons of those who had overeaten and those who had suffered scarce food supplies was estimated at “an astonishing 32 years”. Thus the data implied that a single winter of gluttony as a youngster would “initiate a biological chain of events” resulting in early death for one’s grandchildren compared to that of their contemporaries. This remarkable example clearly highlights how disproportionate the effect of epigenetic factors can be on phenotypic outcomes and forces us to redraw the starting line for the inheritance of metabolic traits.

And so, it seems the age-old expression ‘you are what you eat’ needs revising as it becomes ever more apparent that your family are also what you eat. Perhaps from now on healthy eating campaigns will have the tagline ‘your family shall be what you have eaten’, though personally I think the common sense expression ‘start as you mean to go on’ has perhaps a less foreboding ring to Isaacs Apple Flickr

“It’s green and its beginning to spread” Roisin Taylor For some reason I am nervous. It isn’t even my interview, I am just there to sit in while Mum talks to this green fingered LA native about his passion for growing bananas and passion fruits on the street outside his house. But it is more than that. His story is any young activist’s dream.

We greet, shake hands and sit on a bench in the middle of the Sheffield Winter Gardens, a warm haze and hushed lull of children playing surrounds us while Mum sets up the microphone. Ron and I chat about his google glasses and the fear of technology subsuming modern culture. If one didn’t have an allotment holder for a mother, or called myself ‘garden girl’ at the ripe age of 10, I might have observed he is a pretty technologically in tune guy for someone who is so passionate about growing. But that cliché about stereotypical gardeners being old and fusty, are things of the past. A mix of economic hardship and the green revolution is changing all that.

Ron Finley is a man to be admired. If you are a fan of TED talks then you might already know him, he is igniting what he calls a ‘horticultural revolution’ from a small patch of land outside his South Central LA home. He talks briefly of the context for this revolution, the Los Angeles food desert - an asphalt jungle if you will - the lack of any form of fresh produce in his city and having to drive 40 minutes to get an apple not tainted with pesticides. The familiar trope of fast food chains filling every street and street corner is used multiple times as he describes the context of his story.

All photos taken from ronfinley.com

Angry and bored of the mundanity of the concrete landscape, Ron took to the streets. His street to be precise. To the small patch of slightly browning, condom covered grass. After getting sick of tending to this uncached reserve, he decided to dig it up and plant something more colourful. He wanted to a chance to start ‘growing art and opportunity’ in an area that lacked both.

“Gardening is in all of our background. It was the first profession. I’m not a gardener, but it’s both the most simple and most complex thing you can do. And don’t get me started on compost! It made me realise that nothing ever dies, and that a dead leaf can get a compost heap up to 120 degrees. That’s not dead!”

With the patch in such an open and communal space, slowly people began to help - planting and preserving what was there. It was a transformed patch of land, a place that altered the mood of those who walked by, and it signalled the beginning of Ron’s fight against the LA authorities. His decision to grow exquisite flora on his walkway, inevitably led to authority involvement in his patch of blossoming fruit, veg and flowers. As is always the case with people trying to break out of the system and bring beauty and opportunity to people’s lives, he was faced with written warnings leading all the way to court appearances. He was ordered to rip everything out, banana trees, agapanthus, lavender... but he outright refused.

For Ron it wasn’t just about the absurdity of the request or the benefits and productivity of the garden itself, but about what it represented. It was standing up against neighbourhoods being designed to confine its inhabitants, people living in a system of poor education in which kids aren’t taught skills to live, he says angrily “These places are incubators for the prison system”.

Growing things was an act of political defiance. And I love it. Its the kind of defiance we need more of. Its the simple, small acts of change, which culminate to create better lifestyles for those who are most in need of it. It is about education and teaching people skills that are useful and applicable to life.

Ron said something in particular during the interview that struck me hard, “They say we are giving people hope.

Fuck that. Hope is useless, what people need is opportunity. That’s what we’re giving these kids”. It is so often argued that what people need is hope, and this leads to apathy in action. What Ron so perfectly sums up, is that what people really need is a chance to flourish, because with those tools comes hope. It is simple projects like this which allow those opportunities to thrive.

The LA Times wrote an article about Ron while he was experiencing his uphill struggle against the authorities. It explained what he was doing a n d w h y, a n d thanks to the weight of the word, ensured that the authorities ceased to attack Ron and his patch of fertile land. But now Ron wants to expand, he has his eyes on the 26 square miles of vacant land under ownership of the LA authorities, with which they are currently doing nothing.

“People ask me, ‘how much food can you grow on this tiny bit of land?’ and I tell them I don’t give a shit, because I grow people and they grow food. If we could do it on 26 square miles imagine how much food we could grow then”.

Excitingly, Ron’s message is spreading. Speaking at the Sheffield University Festival of Ideas later on that evening (post interview), he was greeted with receptive ears. Ears that were ready to hear the positivity and excitement of a man who had accidentally stepped into activism. He mentioned during his speech that night, stood in the middle of Sheffield Cathedral, that he had received an email from a father in India saying that his sons had seen him speak on youtube, and decided they wanted to become gangster gardeners. The father had attached a photo of his sons holding gardening equipment. Ron smiled at this while telling the story; “America has exported obesity and diabetes around the world and with the food companies being so powerful, we’re under siege. They don’t want us to grow our own food. Growing your own food is defiant - if you’re doing it, it’s Gangsta!”. And he is right. When did it become radical to grow a carrot? At what point did we spurn the soil and start kissing the concrete?

He’s right about so much. About creating opportunity and giving people skills to be self sufficient. About allowing people the freedom of expression through growing and planting and cooking their own food, food that isn’t tainted by pesticides, food that they themselves have nurtured. And even though he stumbled onto this path of activism, he has brought together a group of people - from his neighbourhood to the outer reaches of the internet - who are passionate about green issues and gaining new opportunities.

These ideas aren’t new. But they are beginning to spread, gaining momentum at every turn. People like Ron Finley are leading us to a greener future with small projects like these, but we have to listen and learn and grow from these examples. Our generation is the generation who will have to make the big decision about prevention of climate change, so lets start making changes now. Spread the word.

Rejuvenated Post-war Allotments: Sustaining communities and cultivating minds.

Roisin Taylor

Is there a beginning of Agriculture in East Asia?

Ellie Olcott It is often assumed that alongside agriculture came the beginning of civilisation and sedentism. However, findings emanating from East Asia of the Early Neolithic period, show that sedentism and complex social interactions preceded the advent of agriculture. Early Neolithic populations in this region were displaying many characteristics of Neolithic behaviour, without there being evidence of the full domestication of plants and animals.

In his paper on the beginnings of agriculture in China, Cohen shows that by 9000 cal BP, the first sedentary villages had arisen in Northeast China, North China, and the Middle and Lower Yangtze regions, which heralded the start of the Early Neolithic. These villages did not however rely on forms of animal and plant domesticates until several millennia later, when the local population embarked on the domestication of millet and agricultural production of rice agricultural production and Cohen posits that agriculture was not revolutionary but a “slow process occurring over 4 millennia in a number of small steps, region to region, after sedentism and other social and ideological changes of “Neolithization” had begun (Cohen, 2011: 273). This early Neolithic population became sedentary and had many characteristics reminiscent of a fully developed agricultural society such as pottery elaboration, house construction, ditch building, and new ritual activities.

The path leading to a fully-fledged agricultural system followed the trajectory of increased exploitation of wild plants resulting in their management and cultivation, then to “the fixing of morphological traits and domestication, and then to the spread of the domesticates” (Cohen, 2011: 273). Archaeologists (e.g., Barton et al.

2009; Hu, Ambrose, and Wang 2006) utilising stable isotope studies have found that the Early Neolithic populations mainly relied on hunting-gathering-fishing but with “intensified exploitation of the plants later cultivated in agricultural systems (Cohen, 2011: 279). Thus, in China, “the Neolithic did not require farming at its start” (Cohen, 2011: 288). Farming here was not the first step towards sedentism and civilisation, but rather dense populations heralded the beginning of farming.

Archaeologists (see Liu, Hunt, and Jones 2009) look to the settlement of Cishan when considering the transition to agriculture in the Yellow River Valley in China.

Excavations of the 8-ha Chishan type site during the 1970s resulted in the discovery of two Neolithic layers which were dated to between 6000 and 5700 BC (Higham, 2005: 240). A series of 474 pits were found, some up to 5m deep, which contained an over 50,000kg of ashy remains of cereals, originally identified as domesticated foxtail millet (Setaria italica). More recent phytolith and biomolecular analyses of the same remains show that they were actually storing domesticated broomcorn millet (Panicum miliacuem.) (Zhao, 2005: 91; 2011) In addition, fresh radiocarbon dating revealed that these grains date from 10,300 to 8700 cal BP, which shows that Cishan could have been one of the first sites of domesticated cereals and dryland farming in China (Cohen, 2014: 283).

Yeowatzup Flickr

Remains reveal that alongside domesticated foxtail millet, the early farming community in Cishan were also exploiting other resources such as domestic pigs and dogs and aquatic resources such as fish and turtles.

The excavations at Cishan are important because they shed light on a vital stage in Chinese prehistory, that of an early agricultural village combining the traditional method of hunting and gathering with domestication of stock and millet. It can be often misleading to talk about the “beginning of agriculture” since agriculture is defined as “ the establishment of an artificial ecosystem in which selected species of plants and animals are cultivated and reared” (Scarre, 2005:183) but for a long time it was an amalgamation of the practice of artificially rearing organisms and that of hunting/gathering. Farming was not a discovery but a gradual and continuing expansion in knowledge.

In his paper on agriculture development in Japan, Crawford argues that the hunter-gatherer concept does not apply to the Jomon people who engaged in some forms of agriculture. Crawford found from Jomon sites in the Kameda Peninsula that the seeds of Echinochloa increased in size by about 20%, suggesting that they were engaged in some form of selection process (Crawford, 2011: 333). This “hunter-gatherer” society was also possibly responsible for the domestication of the soybean in Japan by at least 4,000 years ago. (Crawford, 2011: 336).

Japanese researchers (Obata, Sasaki, and Senba, 2007) have been looking at the impressions made on pottery from the Kyushu region by soybeans, using scanning electron micrography. The beans are “significantly larger (over 10mm long) than wild soya bean” meaning that selection for larger soybeans was taking place by the Middle Jomon period (Crawford, 2011: 335). Crawford provides an insightful analysis for the reason behind the hunter-gather/ farming dichotomy; sites presumed to be hunter-gatherer do not tend to undergo plant-related analysis because it is not a priority. This reinforces perceptions that huntergatherers did not in any way rely on agriculture. Evidence of semi-domestication of plants and animals during the Jomon period demonstrates this to be false, and that for a long time people combined hunting and gathering with some form of agriculture.

Discussion about the beginning of agriculture often ignores the partial use of agriculture by pre-Neolithic populations such as the Jomon. Talking about the “beginnings of agriculture” can be unhelpful because it all too easily leads to the assumption that hunter-gatherers were children of nature, when in reality many hunter-gatherers were active ecological experts who did modify their landscape and produce food without engaging in a full-fledged agricultural system.

C o h e n , D av i d J o e l . 2 0 1 1 . T h e Beginnings of Agriculture in China, A Multiregional View. Current Anthropology, Vol. 52, No. S4 pp.S273-S293 Crawford, Gary W. 2011. Advances in Understanding Early Agriculture in Japan. Current Anthropology, Vol. 52, No. S4, The Origins of Agriculture: New Date, New Ideas, pp. S331-S345 Scarre, Chris. 2005. The World Transformed: From Foragers and Farmers to States and Empires, In The Human Past, Thames and Hudson LTd. Pp 176-199 Yvon Maurice Flickr

Contemporary Cave Painting at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery: Beginning Painting Frankie Cherry On the streets of Fitzrovia this coming January, beginnings will be felt in more than one sense of the word. Not merely in the primitive darkness of the frozen weeks, nor in the desperate commitments to the new year new starts, but in the warm, wooden, pillar-box red enclave of the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery on Charlotte Street. For one month, it will become a prehistoric cave adorned with ochre drawings. Here, the beginnings of painting will play out.

Contemporary Cave Painting is the gallery’s first solo exhibition from CASS Prize winner and Threadneedle Prize finalist Thomas Allen. Inspired by the Surrealist technique of automatic drawing, the exhibition will be both active and interactive. Blacking out the gallery and re-inventing it for the public as a ‘contemporary cave’, Allen will work daily by the light of a single lamp, as did our early predecessors. Over the course of a month, he will adorn the gallery space with ochre, charcoal, sanguine and graphite drawings in homage to the prehistoric cave art of Lascaux, Pech Merle and Font de Gaume, working on an organic surface of paper made from elephant dung and hand-stained with tea.

Finishing touches - Frankie Cherry

Evoking beginnings in the rawness of his materials, the way that the artist uses them also enacts a return to a more fundamental form of aestheticism. To enrich his mural, Allen will walk around the streets of Fitzrovia and invite the public and visitors to the gallery to contribute their own scribbles and imagery, which will inform his own etchings within the space. With the free act of doodling unimpeded by any conscious inhibitions, the cave will be born out of immediate artistic impulses that have not been impeded by social constructs. In this way, Allen hopes to undermine the concept of beginnings as much as to explore it. He has said: “I’ve found the idea of beginnings to be a rather dubious one. Of course, superficially, it’s a useful concept and I wouldn’t advocate that we stop using it. Various strands of hominid have stretched out across the globe in complicated, overlapping paths and their creative expressions have developed in fits and starts. I hope to subvert the idea of beginnings and progress in art. Some might like to think we’re the pinnacle of evolution and are therefore superior to prehistoric humans; others might be inclined to believe those prehistoric humans were living in a sort of Arcadia. But maybe we’re just different, and there is no hierarchy.”

Through the artist’s drawing process, aspects of Jungian psychology will be explored, and a contemplative arena will be created in which all can imaginatively connect to their most basic origins. To guide this retrospection, the gallery also plans to host several complementary talks led by leading academics.

Over the duration of Allen’s painting, the gallery walls will come to reflect the collective unconscious of a community, a unique record of a society: a portrait of its mind.

Contemporary Cave Painting runs from 7 January to 8 February 2015, at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 28 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 2NA, Monday- Saturday 10-6 pm. For further enquiries, please contact press@rebeccahossack.com. , www.rebeccahossack.com 020 7255 2828 @RebeccaHossack

Thomas Allen Homage to Pre-historical cave art.

A New Day Will Dawn The sun will shine, and the flowers will blossom, These winds will blow as the mind still fathoms, Man's journey in life is indeed but a mystery, That has bewildered the mind since the birth of history.

It is easy, they say, to discover treasured goodness, The beauty of love and nature's own richness.

How much more difficult it is, I wonder, To articulate the voice of gratitude, in the midst of one's thunder.

These days are mere shadows, and years will soon disappear, We remain silenced by dilemmas our souls and minds fear, Must we not savour the wisdom from all that we go through?

Lest it should disappear, like the fade of morning dew.

We lament our mistakes, and deplore our failures, Yet should the fruit of improvement grow, without the desire to become greater?

We learn to stand tall and aim for better futures, Only when our nature has endured, the tumult of failed ventures.

It is with goals unaccomplished that we may ignite our desires, To endeavour our mission again, lest our inner yearning retires.

If all were reached and marked with success, What would be left for the ambitious spirit to possess?

We detest the agony of not understanding, That which remains to the mind, utterly unbefitting.

Yet is it not this realm of human limitation, That gives birth to new and exciting explanations?

Grief clouds our sensitivities when times are trying, When the rose of life's benevolence is slowly but surely dying, We overlook that within such bitter tragedies, Is contained a test of our character's true capacities.

And hence is revealed: one core truth, That life goes on without end.

And one cannot be truly grateful, Without also cherishing life's rocky bends.

So lift up your broken spirits, Every end is a new beginning.

With every tragedy and every sorrow, Still the sun will shine tomorrow.

Each day will always come With the chance to start anew, Let not your heart be torn For a new day soon will dawn.

We create our own fate by virtue of our actions,

That is indeed true for all men, Tragedies do happen, yet always we find On these does our strength depend.

Hina Khalid

Bachkovo Monastery Bulgaria’s National Revivalist Art Roisin Taylor

Above: (Left) Main Church and (Right) close up of Fresco Below: Ceiling fresco outside Ossuary

Above: Bachkovo Panorama mural - Alexi Atanasov. Pictoral history of Bachkovo monastery.

The Monastery was founded in 1083 by Prince Gregory Pakourianos.

Above: Frescoes outside main church.

Below: Demons flog women while tempting them from civility to hell.

The Dawn of the Anthropocene…

Jess Farmery

How exactly does one mark the end of one geographical epoch and the transition to a new one? Should we start buying fireworks and practicing our renditions of ‘Auld Lang Sine’? Or is it a time to meditate on the resolutions which the global community desperately needs to make in order to prevent climatic catastrophe?

An international Working Group of scientists are currently engaging in one of the most significant geological debates in living memory.

Their aim is to decide whether or not we are living through the start of a new epoch. In order to evaluate the grounds for reclassification, experts from a wide array of disciplines will consider whether the actions of Homo sapiens have fundamentally altered the planet’s climate and ecological structures. It is beyond reasonable doubt that our species has left its distinctive and destructive footprints on the Earth, but it remains to be decided if we have had enough of an impact to justify the geological transition.

In order to declare a new epoch, the 'geological signal' being produced in developing rock strata must be sufficiently large, clear and distinctive. In the past, these signals have been the result of events such super-volcano eruptions or a meteor strikes; natural phenomena rather than conscious human effort. Disagreements exist over whether should accept the traces of radiation left in the soil layers by atomic weapons as sufficient geological evidence, or whether signatures of agriculture found deep in European rock strata, dating from 900 AD, should be included in considerations. A clear geological signal may also result from industrial-scale mining, damming and deforestation, as well as the rise in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere (currently rising at an unprecedented rate of 2ppm annually), traces of pesticides, lead, and sulphur dioxide. Acidification and nitrification of the oceans and accelerated erosion has been altering sediment, mineral and fossil deposits on the ocean floor. Furthermore, accumulations of human-produced chemicals like PCBs, and non-biodegradable materials such as plastics could realistically be evident in the strata millions of years in the future.

Human evolution (Reddit)

If formally recognised, the new epoch will most likely be christened the ‘Anthropocene’; a term first used by ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer, and popularised by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen. ‘Anthro’ means human, and ‘cene’ means new, so the name explicitly recognises the unprecedented influence which humans now exercise over their environment. The official re-naming would mark the end of the Holocene Epoch, which has defined the geological conditions of the past 10,000 years. The Working Group may alternatively decide to classify the current period as a subdivision of the ongoing Holocene Epoch (i.e. as a new ‘Age’), but either way their proposal will be submitted to the International Commission on Stratigraphy in 2016.

Aside from battles over nomenclature, there is also considerable debate over precisely when the official start date of the Anthropocene occurred. A faction of scientists and historians claim that humans have been influencing the ecosystem and climate of the planet as far back as 10,000 BCE, around the time of the spread of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution. Activities such as forest clearing, domestication of animals, and hunting all took their toll on ecological equilibrium, and arguably laid the foundations of the current global environmental crisis. However the most commonly held opinion is that the beginning of the

Anthropocene should coincide with the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century. This period heralded the start of our reliance on fossils fuels, as well as a mass exploitation of natural resources, widespread environmental destruction, and an unprecedented reduction in biodiversity. Nevertheless some climatologists maintain that the 1950s, which brought a ‘Great Acceleration’ in the scope and speed of human impact on the planet, should be recognised as the official start date. Since the ‘50s global mean temperatures have rocketed by 0.55 degrees Celsius, species extinction rates are now over 100x the the natural norm, and over 7.3 million hectares of forest are destroyed every year. Changing atmospheric gas concentrations and ozone depletion are leading to dramatic shifts in climatic conditions, whilst the loss of icecaps and low-lying land means that the face of the Earth is undergoing the most rapid and obvious remodelling in millennia.

A new chapter may be about to begin in the history of our planet. If humans do not take decisive and rapid action to reverse the impact of their destructive actions, it may well be the last.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com

http://www.anthropocene.info/en/about

A New Beginning for South Sudan?

Alice Farmery Sheffield University

South Sudan may be the world’s youngest nation, but three years on from its independence, Africa’s 54th state is already on the brink of catastrophe.

The Republic of South Sudan was born on the 9th of July 2011 after decades of guerrilla warfare between the Arab controlled government in the North and

rebels in the black-African South, which cost upwards of two million lives and obliterated what precious little infrastructure the country possessed. A peace deal, brokered by the US in 2005, granted the South the right to secede, and was supported by nearly 99 per cent of voters craving greater autonomy and control over their country’s valuable resources. On the eve of the agreement, Joseph Deiss (the then-president of the United Nations) proclaimed that “a long-standing conflict has been stopped”. However, the events since South Sudan achieved independence have proven this statement to be pre-emptive.

The country’s history has been defined by colonisation

by Britain and Eygpt pre-1956, and afterwards by violent inter-ethnic conflict in the form of two civil wars - 1955 to 1972 and 1983 to 2005. The current war broke out in December last year, when the President Salva Kiir accused his sacked deputy Machar of trying to stage a coup. The violence now Retlaw Snelac Flickr

includes more than 20 different armed groups. Kiir and Machar signed a ceasefire at the start of the year and several subsequent deals to renew it, but the truces

have been short lived. In addition, a cattle-raiding feud between rival ethnic groups in Jonglei state has left hundreds of people dead and some 100,000 displaced since independence.

This humanitarian crisis is spiralling out of control, in a country where continuing violence, unrest and political insecurity resulted in government security expenditure exceeding $700 in 2011 - more than it spent on education, health care, electricity, roads, and industry combined. South Sudan is currently at war with at least seven armed rebel groups in nine of its ten states, with tens of thousands displaced by the violence. The infant mortality rate, commonly used as an indicator of poverty, stands at 135.3 per 1,000, whilst maternal mortality is the highest in the world at 2,053.9 per 100,000 live births. Despite a population of eight-ten million people there were only three surgeons serving southern Sudan in 2004, a figure which has barely risen in the past ten years. By the end of this year, it is expected that nearly a million of the country’s children under the age of five will face severe and acute malnutrition, and half the population of South Sudan now requires humanitarian assistance.

Campagna Sudan - flickr

South Sudan has the potential to be extremely wealthy, as the multi-million dollar oil industry currently extracts 375,000 barrels per day from beneath the country’s soil. However, at present the benefits of this resource are not being equally distributed, and the unstable economy relies on foreign aid and subsistence agriculture to meet the needs of the population. Economic overdependence on the capital Juba as a source of revenue to support the county’s ten other states is a main cause of structural weakness, compounded by a shared national debt of approximately $38 billion. The IGAD, an East Africa and Horn of Africa trade bloc, recently threatened serious sanctions if an "unconditional, complete and immediate end to all hostilities" was not achieved. These sanctions are likely to be supported with similar action from the UN which would further damage the economy.

Promises made in 2005 which pledged to improve the lives of South Sudan’s 7.47 million rural citizens (such as the construction of windmills and micro-dams) were never substantiated, leaving the majority of the population without access to electricity or running water. Other infrastructure projects have been blighted by billion-dollar corruption scandals. In January 2011 Sudan's President Omar alBashir announced that dual citizenship in the North and the South would be allowed, but upon the South’s independence six months later he retracted the offer, leading to widespread anger among citizens who felt betrayed and lost trust in the sincerity of al-Bashir’s intentions.

Photographs top to bottom: (All Flickr) Steve Evans, European Parliament, Campagna Sudan, UN.

The start of South Sudan’s existence was marred by tragedy; just three weeks after the government was elected, the vice-president John Garang was killed in a helicopter crash that threatened the fragile unity of the country and cast a shadow over prospects for peace in Darfur. Garang gave a voice to Sudan’s marginalised non-Arab communities, and was a tireless campaigner for an end to the conflict between the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups. There are widespread fears that this conflict could rekindle if significant progress in improving relations does not take place. Tension has been augmented by the threat of a widespread famine; in some areas the shortage of basic goods has already begun to spark hyper-inflation.

Although it can be argued that many of South Sudan’s problems are inherited, the current government must take responsibility for repeating many of the errors made by former Sudanese leaders. Short-term action must be taken to halt the humanitarian disaster that threatens the nation’s survival, and to solve the plight of the thousands of refugees. It is also crucial that a united effort is made by the international community to provide the financial and mediatory support necessary to overcome entrenched the political and ethnic differences that South Sudan faces. Despite great adversity, the people still hold out a hope for their nation- this determination

is demonstrated through the success of small

projects that look beyond regional divisions, such as the Excel Academy. This school, situated in the town of Yei, provides a comprehensive education for both girls and boys regardless of their ethnicity, and is an example of what South Sudan could achieve if it is able to overcome its difficulties.

The problems faced by the

world’s newest country will take many years to resolve, but if effective solutions cannot be found there is a danger that the lifespan of this nation will be tragically brief.

Both photos taken from UN Flickr stream.

The Offensive Freedom of the Internet: Dapper Laughs, Rape, and Internet Culture.

William Stark Dapper Laughs is only the beginning.

When Daniel O’Reilly’s character ‘Dapper Laughs’ was shamed off of television this month over allegations of ‘overstepping the mark’ in terms of comedy, I was not surprised. The archetypal ‘lad’ found his fame in a different domain than the one he was expelled from. Dapper Laughs rose to fame on the ‘Vine’ app, that allows you to share 7 second long video clips. My first exposure to Dapper Laughs was, however, on YouTube. Round my mate’s, after watching England’s dismal World Cup failure, one of my friends loads up a compilation video of Dapper Laugh’s Vines. In our beery post-Hodgson state, it was comic relief. Despite being overtly sexist, it was not shocking. I can’t remember if there were any references to rape. I don’t think I would have particularly flinched if there was.

Am I de-sensitised to this offensive language? Am I a misogynist? I’d like to think not. I think the reason I was not shocked was because this was on the internet, and YouTube in particular. Many mainstream YouTubers use the word ‘rape’ in a humorous, non serious way. This article will not concern itself on how much of issue this is.

However, what it will do is illustrate just how normalised using the word ‘rape’ is across internet communities.

My examples both have something in common; they are male, British YouTubers who are in their early twenties, around the same age as an undergraduate. Additionally, they both centre their content around console gaming. I was first introduced to these channels when I was a teenager, probably around 16 or 17. Arguably this is the target audience for both YouTubers.

My first example, KSI (or as he was called previously KSIOlajideBT) was and is a very popular YouTuber, providing montage videos of the range of FIFA footballing games. His humour is extremely brash and immature, but is perfect fodder for teenage boys. While writing this article I looked back on his channel to remind myself of his style. On his main page channel, the suggested video is a long-delayed Q&A session. In his usual style, he has edited his own voice shouting down at himself on screen telling him he is a ‘dirty black cunt’ for taking so long to create the video. Subtlety may not be his strong point.

Photo credit Cagri Yuz Flickr

I then start to explore his videos, finding one from 2012, entitled ‘Raped by Goalpost’. This video was part of his ‘FIFA Funnies’ series, highlighting viewer submitted videos of humorous glitches within the game. During the video, there is a clip of a virtual player being sucked in through the goalpost in a game of ‘FIFA Street’. KSI talks over this, in a mock David Attenborough voice, explaining how the goalpost ‘begins to anally rape him [the player]’. The video then jumps to a crudely animated video of the virtual players supposed wife and children, where the wife, with an horses head superimposed on her, asks if ‘she was not good enough’.

Photo credit Cagri Yuz Flickr

Clearly KSI is not a man for subtlety. However, his popularity means he has not been missed by mainstream media. He has been on the BBC and BTSport a number of times, mostly for his views on YouTubing and football gaming. KSI was nominated for a Radio 1 Teen Awards for best British vlogger, as reported on Newsround. I doubt the phrase ‘Anal Rape’ has ever been uttered by John Craven. While the BBC haven't given KSI a show or any major role yet, he seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Not because he will say anything that is against BBC guidelines but while working for them, but rather a newspaper will find the aforementioned video, and the host of others which used ‘rape’ in such a casual and supposedly humorous way. The ‘Dapper Laughs’ model will repeat.

Not all YouTubers are like KSI. Some are a lot calmer, and rely less on swearing in their humour. My second example, Syndicate (or as he was known, TheSyndicateProject) is another popular gamer who previously focussed on the ‘Nazi Zombies’ mode of gameplay in the Call of Duty Franchise. More recently he has diversified and now has an extremely popular Minecraft series of videos.

Syndicate, or Tom, as is his real name, has the mannerism of an excitable teenager, in the most innocent way.

During my teenage zombie-slaying years he helped develop my methods of extermination no end. However, his method of Zombie killing was called, by himself, ‘the Rapetrain’. The method of running around, allowing the zombies to chase you and picking them off gradually is a superbly successful method, and thus I was an avid watcher of his videos, watching him advance to levels far higher than I could ever achieve.

Tom however, is different to KSI. While KSI’s act is that of an obnoxious FIFA player, making numerous and controversial jokes about masturbating and playing on the fact that he is black and of African heritage, Tom is a very pleasant and nice guy in his videos. I particularly remember the videos he put up of him and his grandfather, and the ways in which he has managed to spend his YouTube money to build a new house for him and his family. For a lad from Stockport, he has done very well for himself.

Tom is not an overt misogynist or an angry individual. I can remember how very sensitive he was even over the death of his pet lizard, having not watched his videos for two years! However, he very casually uses the word ‘rape’ in his videos. There is no intention to offend, but merely a feeling of normality in using this word.

These two very similar cases. The main difference between them is the style of presentation. However, they do share 3 important factors.

Firstly they are very popular. KSI currently has 7,468,098 subscribers, whereas Syndicate has 8,208,219.

Do keep in mind, less people have a gold YouTube ‘1 million subscriber’ award than there have been Nobel Laureates. They are part of the few big ‘YouTuber’ names.

Secondly, they are only boys in bedrooms who have started their own channels. They are not part of larger companies giving guidelines on content. They started as individuals, and despite greater involvement of external companies as they rise to prominence, they still very much are in control of what they put out.

Finally, they both use the word ‘rape’ in a casual, supposedly humorous way. They are not agenda fuelled.

They merely wish to respond to demand, and this type of humour has worked for them at points in their YouTube career.

When one considers the emergence of the deadly ‘Dapper Laughs’ video in which he used to word rape, you must wonder how successful internet transitions to TV will be, when each audience has very different expectations.

Photo credit Joe Duarte Flickr