Cli-Fi

Check out some of my online flash fiction which includes nature, growth in all its connotations and climate concerns around weather, environment, migration, mental health, fertility, cycles and inequality. From 50 words anthropomorphising a succulent to speculative fiction about babies sold in convenience stores or houses with built-in skies.

 

🌴  The Fish Tank Mangroves Canopy - Urban Tree Festival Shortlist 

🌴  The Norwegian Spruce Seeds of the Svalbard Vault UTF Longlist

🌴  The Life Cycle of Fire & Note Craft

🌴  The Animals of Göbekli Tepe  The Phare Podcast

🌴  Always Sunset Retreat West Flash Festival Competition

🌴  Plink Paragraph Planet

🌴  Our Lady of Perpetual Plastic  & Smoke & Mirrors interview Smokelong Quarterly

🌴  Eclipsed Spread the Word & London Wildlife Trust This is Our Place Anthology

🌴  Woodbine Reflex Fiction Autumn 2021 Flash Fiction Competition (4th place) 

🌴  The Acorns of Bartlett Park  Sydney Gardens Park Bath Tree Weekender prose winner. 

🌴  Watermelon Metropolis Litro Magazine - Nature Issue

🌴  Convenience Store Babies Janus Literary Issue 5

🌴  Twenty-one Species of Fish Called Sardine  Oxford Flash Fiction Prize Winner

🌴  No Birds' Nests in the Tree Next Door NFFD Flash Flood Journal  

🌴  Sowing Sea Meadows   Litro 

🌴  The Succulent  50 - Word Stories

🌴  Tulips for the Homeless  Reflex Fiction  

🌴  Other Uses for a Woman's Body  Lunate Int. Women's Day Micro Competition Winner

 

Is Nature Right? Is War Natural?

'Are Human Beings Naturally Violent and Warlike?' we are asked in an article of the War and Peace issue of  Philosophy Now (Nov/Dec Issue, 2014). 'Not necessarily,' says David P. Barash.

Barash goes on to say that '...the ‘war is in our genes’ perspective is not only scientifically invalid but ethically suspect' (2014). Barash (2014) considers '...the connection between expectation and reality becomes complex, because of the risk that theories of human nature feed directly into people being liable to modify their behavior (although not their ‘nature’) as a result.'  

Barash (2014) asks us to imagine a miltary group in country A convinced of country B's 'warproneness' refusal to get involved in negotiations instead planning for war which in turn has the same reaction from country B. The 'danger' being, he says of 'assuming that Homo sapiens has a natural instinct for war is that it can become a highly destructive self-fulfilling prophecy, not only closing off possible avenues of peaceful conflict resolution, but actually making war more likely' (Barash, 2014).

As Barash maintains '...a capacity is a far cry from a necessity...' (2014). He is 'an optimist' and a 'believer in the power of human cultural self-direction to espouse not only the desirability of peace but also its feasibility' (ibid). However this does rely upon, he contends, people freeing themselves 'from the cynical, self-deceiving, and indeed scientifically unsupportable presumption that our species is biologically doomed to unceasing violence'(ibid).
  
Wenden (2013) speaks of 'the ethical dimension, the absence of which leads to a gap between right thinking and responsible action'.

Barash (2014) tells the story about a girl who asks her Grandfather what her dream about two wolves fighting means. He tells her that they are inside everyone, and one is peaceful and one is not. When she asks him which wolf wins, he tells her its the one that you feed!

Einstein, as quoted in The Meanings of Peace, said: 

We need an essentially new way of thinking if mankind is to survive. Men must radically change their attitudes toward each other and their views of the future. Force must no longer be an instrument of politics. Today, we do not have much time left; it is up to our generation to succeed in thinking differently. If we fail, the days of civilized humanity are numbered.

52 Quotes on War and Peace

Barash, P, (2014) Are Humans Naturally Violent and Warlike? November/December Issue, Philosophy Now
Wenden, A. L. (2013) Raising the bar for peace and sustainability educators: an educational response to the implementation gap, Special Issue: Greening Peace and Sustaining Justice, Volume 11, Issue 3, Journal of Peace Education

Raised by Wolves - So much for keeping the wolf from the door!

The nature nurture debate continues, but does it matter if you have genes that give you a good start in life when you could end up being raised by wolves?

The fairy tales like Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book or earlier tales like that of Romulus and Remus all had happy endings. They didn't worry about the critical times for language acquisition or other such needs of a child. Real life Mowgli syndrome is an altogether more disturbing story, and one which doesn't even have to include four legged animals. In the case of Genie a ten year old girl brought up in isolation from human social contact, the animals who raised her were humans. There has been no happy ending there.

Of course we think this is an extreme case of horrific abuse and that most children who suffer abuse don't to that extent, that they have some measure of a quality of life. And we reckon it doesn't happen that often anyway.

However....

• 23% of people report being physically abused as children (WHO)

 And what about deprivation?

• 1 billion children in the world are living in poverty ...that is 1 in 2*
• 100 million children are stunted or under weight**
• 640 million children have no adequate shelter*
• 400 million children have no access to safe water*
• 270 million children have no health services*
• 120 million children have no education*

And because of this...

• 3.1 million children die a year because if poor nutrition**
• 1.4 million children die a year from a lack of safe water and sanitation*
• 2.2 million children die a year because they are not immunised*
• 18, 000 children die every day because of poverty (UNICEF)

Sources: *Poverty Facts and Stats by Anup Shah

** World Food Programme Hunger Stats

So much for keeping the wolf from the door!

So how about nearer home? In Tower Hamlets, the East End of London there is a child poverty rate of over 50%. How can this be ? How can a London borough book ended by the illustrious City and the financial district of Canary Wharf have children living in poverty, and so many ?

The government committed to ending child poverty by 2020, however, according to the Guardian (2014), the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that by 2020 it will increase by 39%.

So much for keeping the wolf from the door !

So what happens to the children in the world who avoid or survive the abuse and deprivation? Do they grow up to do better than the previous generation or is their behaviour conditioned by the wolves that raised them? Whether children experience the animal-like carnivorous greed for food or the capitalist 'Wolf of Wall Street' greed for money, they will be conditioned by the extended capitalist media family, this wolf in sheep's clothing.

'We best measure a society’s true worth by how it treats its youngest members ‑ the girls and boys who would one day become tomorrow’s parents, citizens and leaders.' 

Anthony Lake, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Will our children grow up to be wolves too? Are we committing to an ever spiralling vicious circle and widening gap between the rich and poor? Creating a more unequal society. And more and more children in the world dying from neglect?

When we discuss the nature/nurture debate we do so as if the nurturing is a given. However I would contend that the word 'nurture'  is a contradiction in terms when it comes to children being raised by wolves. And that, considering the way that children are treated by the human animal, at times it would be kinder to throw them to the wolves.

So much for keeping the wolf from the door!