“Ants can live together in solidarity and forget themselves in the community. In a normative capitalist society, everyone is an egoist. In the ants’ civilization, you are part of the group; you don’t live for yourself alone..”– Bernard Werber, Empire of the Ants

I have always turned to books during my most extreme moments of introversion. One day, I pulled a book entitled “Empire of the Ants” from my mother’s library. Overwhelmed with my loneliness, I didn’t give much thought to the title I picked.

With the book in hand, I retreated to my room and started reading, fascinated by every line. Werber’s ability to depict ants’ social behaviors and the different dynamics governing their relationships is outstanding. Ants live in solidarity, and in remarkable closeness. As I contemplated ants crawling in between Werber’s lines and followed every move of theirs, my loneliness faded away.

Today, as my loneliness resurged in the times of Covid-19 and social distancing, I resorted again to the world of ants. These creatures never disappoint you. They raise hundreds of questions in your head as you impulsively observe the convergences of their world with that of humans. Both ants and humans are highly social animals with advanced communication skills, living within large societies. Therefore, a comparison may prove meaningful.

Ants are social insects communicating through touch, sounds and chemical signals. After finding food, an ant carries what can be held to the nest, releasing chemical signals along the way guiding fellow ants to the food source. They communicate with their environment with no prior planning, cooperating to satisfy their needs in terms of food, shelter and safety. Ants go to great lengths in pursuit of these needs, sometimes culminating in aggressive ant wars.

Six human species existed on earth over 2 million years ago, of which only Homo sapiens (modern humans) survived. Where did all these species go?

Scientific evidence proves they didn’t completely merge, except for some interbreeding among Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans. Five species are extinct today, due to a survival battle among humans in which Homo sapiens emerged triumphant. Yet, humans are still aggressively battling each other, with their shared humanity failing to deter their cruel actions. Likewise, ants engage in interspecies and intraspecies wars. These wars are predominantly driven by competition for food, shelter and safety; ants perceive other species or colonies as threats to their survival, leading to conflicts within a species or a colony.

This makes me wonder: what threat did George Floyd represent in the eyes of the police officer who killed him, a threat so severe that it led him to murder the man with such cold blood, despite all Floyd’s pleas?

In wars, all things are permissible in the eyes of combatants: beating, fighting, killing, dismemberment, bombing and explosions. A remarkably similar scene prevails in the world of ants, including explosions. Some ant species can get their glands to explode in the face of their opponents, literally. When angry enough, ants transform into ‘time bombs’, releasing toxic chemicals all around.

This gets me thinking again: Could some perceive what happened in Minneapolis in the US as a war between humans and another totally different race, like ants for instance? Would that explain the officer’s cold-bloodedness while smashing Floyd’s neck with his leg to pull his soul away, akin to how one might crush an ant? Very terrifying!

However, the evolution of ants has permitted the emergence of a new species, with highly developed social skills and a compromised ability to distinguish fellow colony members. These ants treat each ant they encounter along their path as kin, in a total eradication of colony borders and boundaries. As a result, wars have diminished within this emergent ants species, leading to greater ecological success due to their enhanced communication skills. We could hence argue that the higher the level of communication, the higher the chances for success.

In contrast, human evolution has led to the creation of additional tangible borders and boundaries between individuals and across various aspects of life, boundaries we release every night as we return to our homes and immerse ourselves in the virtual world. Today, in a time of pandemic and social distancing, our isolation has further intensified, despite our attempts to alleviate the cruelty of our present – through suggesting terms like “physical distancing” and “social closeness” to justify our isolation. We use the Internet as a legitimate means to express to our loved ones that we miss them. We fool ourselves pretending we’re getting closer to our beloved ones, when in reality we are just adding to the distance.

And amidst our isolation, news about humans killing each other for reasons relating to color, gender or nationality just keep pouring…

 

This article- Ants in the times of pandemic

This article is also published in Arabic, here.