#BlackLivesMatter — What Argentine Ants can teach us about Coexistence
Racial discrimination dates as far back as the early 1500s at the start of colonialism. This means, although colonialism ‘supposedly ended’ decades ago, we have still not been able to fix the way we see ourselves despite all the intellectual advancement that has brought us things like sliced bread, the internet, flying cars, and even rockets to Mars. Just think about it, for over 500 years the human race has still not been ‘smart enough’ to invent ways to coexist with one another. Isn’t that embarrassing?
As a Biomimic-in-training, the #BlackLivesMatter protests over the past few weeks have left me in deep reflection for so many reasons. This is not only because I’m from the most populous black nation on earth or even because some weird people ask me if I live in a village whenever I travel abroad. I was mostly worried because I kept wondering if there were models for coexistence in nature that could give us an idea of how to solve this 500-yearlong problem. After many days of research into the social structure of the ant kingdom plus tons of YouTube videos, I finally found a model that might not be perfect but definitely gives us a trail of pheromones to follow in our quest to fix this social misnomer. Meet my friend, the Argentine ant.
Like Ant, Like Man
In many ways, Linepithema humile, also known as the Argentine ant, an ant native to northern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and southern Brazil can be seen as an insect metaphor for humanity. Although individually small in size, their colonies are usually hard to miss due to their massive population. Does that sound like us? Many people refer to their settlements as a Mega Ant Colony because Argentine ants have made themselves at home in 15 countries, spanning six continents — don’t ask me if they had to buy flight tickets — and are notorious for their invasive nature which involves destroying host ecosystems where they invade, chasing local insects and animals away as they compete for food and other resources. Again, hello humanity is that you? Seeing that we have these negative similarities, which we should fix by the way because we claim to be the smartest ones, doesn’t it mean we can also copy something positive from them?
The Ant model for Coexistence
Thanks to the framework in Biomimicry called Life’s Principles, the principle ‘Evolve to Survive’ teaches us how Argentine Ants have mastered the skill of coexistence to ensure that their ‘race’ can continue to multiply, unlike other ants who fight among their species. The truth is, if we don’t fix the problem of discrimination, the human race could head for self-destruction, in the form of nuclear civil and world wars. Here is what I call the ant model for coexistence taught by nature’s masters of sociology, Linepithema humile, my argentine friends.
1) One big Unicolonial Family
According to Dr. Neil Tsutsui, Professor at UC Berkley, other ants usually adopt a multicolonial structure that has several nests within a colony and colonies usually fight against each other regardless of species or location. As far as their nests are not within the same colony, they’re seen as a threat which is pretty much what we do as humans. Once someone doesn’t have our skin colour, accent, or hair texture, in our minds we scream “enemy!” whether the person is friendly or not and often get on the defensive protecting our imaginary ‘nests’.
The Argentine ants have adopted a colony structure that is different from other ants in the world. I don’t know if they had a UN meeting (United Nests of Linepithema) to discuss this as I’m not really sure how they could figure this out, but here’s how it works for them. They have only one colony and see their congregation around the world as nests within that one giant global colony. Therefore if you bring an argentine ant from Australia and another from South Africa and put them in an enclosed box, Dr. Neil’s research shows that no fights break between the two. They will exchange pheromones (chemical signals), do their Wakanda greeting (okay I made that up), and continue to communicate on how they can escape from your box. On the other hand, research has shown that If you bring two field ants or any other kind of ant from two States in America or 500m away within the same State and put them in one box, whether they’re the same species or not, WWE Royal Rumble will occur and in most cases, both ants end up dead.
2) 100 Crowns = Decentralized Power
According to Terro, a group of Argentine ant nests often contain hundreds of queens, as opposed to other ant colonies that usually have one queen per nest and her job is to produce the next generation of workers and monarchs with the autonomy at her disposal. Usually, racial discrimination stems from perceived power and supremacy. When one group feels like they are better than the other, discrimination and eventual resentment sets in — which often leads to violence as we have seen many times from history. It could be the central power of resources like in Nigeria where individuals from a certain region have control over the resources of the entire country or the central power of position like the United Nations Security Council where only the richest and strongest countries have the loudest voices.
There are many arguments for and against democracy. I’m not here to argue that thesis but in order to foster coexistence, we need to dismantle high walls of supremacy around the world between tribes, races, countries, and even social groups. I understand that it is natural to feel empowered when one has what others don’t have, but if that feeling of empowerment is not shared among the ‘colony’ then problems could be lurking around the corner.
3) Appreciate Uniqueness
If you study nature as I do, one thing you would notice is that God is the master of uniqueness. I mean, even snowflakes don’t have the same pattern, no two fingerprints are the same! This same uniqueness can be seen in a typical argentine ant nest. Workers are typically light to dark brown in color and range between 2.2 to 2.8 mm long. They are wingless with a 12-segmented antenna while Queens are slightly larger than workers, measuring between 4 to 6 mm long. Reproductives (queens and males) may also have wings. In spite of this diversity of colours and sizes, they have still found a way to live together as the much bigger ants break hard nuts with their mandibles while the smaller ones meander into the tightest corners to forage for food.
We all have individual uniqueness, white, black, Latino, African, global North, global South. Our resources, experiences, and culture all make us unique. Instead of fighting each other’s uniqueness what if we all use it for the greater good? How can we carry out cross-boundary transactions that will ensure both parties maintain their dignity? Like in the case of France siphoning the national budgets of francophone African countries without really giving anything back in return? Or promoting words that make fun of the uniqueness of one group over the other? Blackmail, Blacksheep, Blackbook, Blackmagic. Which English man made all these words though? Can Oxford, Longman, and co come up with more neutral words for negative connotations? Because as far as I am concerned black and white are neutral (pun intended) colours.
4) Collaborate towards achieving Common Goals
Finally, for the global Argentine ant colony, their ADG (Ant Development Goal), is simple (Lol, sorry I will stop the metaphors). Their goals are, expand and multiply, period. Simple. Just like Mojojojo from Powerpuff girls, they want to take over the entire globe such that if the world ends today and there will be one ant left on this earth, it has to be… an… argentine… ant! (dramatic music ends). What is even more beautiful is how they distribute responsibilities without a central leader and collaborate to achieve set objectives without To-Do Lists. In 2015 the World agreed to 17 Global Goals that we would work towards by 2030 summarized in these five Ps; People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.
If you ask me, this is actually more powerful than the ADG mostly because our brains are bigger and we can rhyme words to make our goals sound more beautiful. Cute, but besides the poetry are we still committed to the 17 SDGs? We should hold ourselves accountable because just like the colony if one part of the system refuses to play its role the entire ant nest will face disaster. We need to understand that If any country or individual refuses to contribute their quota to the actualization of the SDGs, we are doomed. Yes, your role is very important.
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There you have it, the ant model for coexistence. My final thought is that discrimination is easy, try understanding. If an ant can humble itself as lowly as it is, ready to learn more about its fellow specie in order to be able to identify it from anywhere in the world, then what is your excuse? As the BLM protests intensify in America and other parts of the world, despite the pandemic, my charge to leaders like President Trump and to all of us is simple. The choice before you is between Multicolonial versus Unicolonial; Oppressive power versus Decentralized power; Division versus Collaboration; and in this context, Other ants in the world versus Argentine Ants. I hope you choose wisely.
“Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!” (Proverbs 6: 6, NLT)
