During my labours this week I found out what a murmuration is, and it instantly made me feel better about life.
No doubt you’ve seen videos of that natural phenomenon where hundreds of thousands of little birds – European starlings to be exact – fly together in massive, synchronised flocks that look like shape-shifting clouds. This is called a bird murmuration, something I didn’t know before. It is named so because of the sound that comes from all those little wings flapping together combined with the gentle flight calls shared between the birds.
These exquisite exhibitions of coordination and artistry typically happen around dusk as the birds prepare for their evening rest, or to evade predators like hawks and falcons. You may have seen massive schools of small fish, like sardines and herrings, do the same thing to avoid dolphins on the hunt. This watery version is called a bait ball.
To make this mercurial spectacle, the birds don’t follow the instructions of a single leader. Instead, each individual keeps an eye on its immediate neighbours – usually six or seven birds around it – and reacts instantly to their movements. If a bird at the edge of the flock moves to the right, the bird to its right does the same, and this creates a ripple effect through the whole group. The bait balls work the same, and it allows the one who spots the danger first to instantly activate a wave of response from the rest of the fish.
I also encountered the notion of the ‘wood wide web’. This is a colloquial term used for the network of trees connected through a vast web of fungal threads called mycelium linking the individual root systems into one interconnected organism. The trees are able to share water, nutrients and warning signals through this web. The oldest and biggest trees act as hubs and are referred to as Mother Trees. Research by scientists suggest these Mother Trees can send extra nutrients to where it’s needed by the young ones, and can recognise individual identities with the network.
These images of coexistence, community and collaboration are inspirational. Humanity is struggling to find alternatives to the social, political and economic systems that keep repeating the cycles of conflict, economic deprivation, environmental destruction, and violence. We seem singularly incapable of designing societies that nurture rather than devour, that foster cooperation instead of competition.
We make rules that disproportionately impact poor people on the one hand, and act merely as suggestions for the rich and powerful. Even the much-vaunted system of democracy so widely held up as the best way to live has been undermined by the inexorable march of those who want more and more. It is too widely and too easily accepted today that the totality of democracy is the idea of electoral contestation to determine the will of the people. To challenge this as an insufficient model to govern society is akin to treason. Heaven forbid that we insist on a mode of governance that goes beyond the ballot box and looks at how we safeguard accountability, fairness and equity.
The bird murmuration and WWW of trees helped a wonderfully eclectic collection of Africans try to go beyond the constraints of conventional conversation, and to allow their imaginations free reign in conceptualising ways of being that are not constrained by the things we know and are comfortable with.
Imagine what could be possible if humanity could learn from the birds and the fish and the matriarchal trees? Imagine if our dreams of an egalitarian and safe society were to be harnessed in shaping what our democracy could look like, informing the choices we make as we design rules and systems to coexist?
It’s time we learnt a different way to hold conversations. It’s time we stopped only listening to the learned, to the resourced ones who can use terms and concepts without empathy and heart. It’s time we shaped our conversations to embrace imagination, to let our dreams enable our creativity in deciding how we want to be.
These are not pipe dreams. This week in Joburg we held that space for imagining, and we will continue to hold other spaces in other parts of our continent. I dare all of us to hold our conversations with our partners, our children, our friends in ways that centre dreams and imagination. Who knows, we may actually find peace, safety, and solidarity.