IF ANTS COULD SPEAK, WOULD WE LISTEN?

    If ants could speak, would we listen?
    Or would we step on them like the Reagan administration?
    Or would we set up a special congressional commission
    to investigate the problem of talking ants?
    Would we treat them as "human beings" or as second-class
    citizens?
    Would we give them a free college education or deny them
    student loans?
    Would we welcome them into our pockets or brush them off
    like all unwanted foreign matter?
    Would we discriminate against them on the basis of sex,
    age, color, or creed?
    Or would we teach them perfect brotherhood and sisterhood?
    What about homosexual ants? Would we allow them to teach
    in public schools or shun them as perverts of society?
    Would we give them a grant for a better ant colony and
    better housing?
    Would we share with them our frosted corn flakes, our twinkies
    and our chocolate bars?
    Would we set up a student exchange program to learn more
    about their culture?
    Would we give them access to counseling and psychotherapy?
    What about retarded ants? How would we handle them?
    How would we measure their IQ?

    If ants could speak, would we really listen?
    What language would they really speak?
    Is it going to be American English or Chinese or Swahili?
    Would we need a special interpreter with several PhD's
    and no driver's license? Who would pay him thousand bucks
    an hour (because no one knows what the hell this language is)
    and drive him around and pay for his hotel stay?

    If ants could speak, would they tell us that we're intellectually
    inferior--retarded, in fact, by their standards?
    What would we do then? Would we get pissed off and bomb them
    or would we agree on a mutual strategic arms limitation?

    If ants could speak, what would they say about us?
    Would they tell us that we are much like them?
    Haven't we become ants already? Haven't we forgotten how
    to communicate?

    If we could speak, would ants listen?
    If we could speak, would we listen?

                                                                         July 4, 1986
                                                                      --Alexander Shaumyan