Many an engineer has copied the good old mother nature’s design ideas. I too have followed suit. Occasionally when I want to analyse an issue on the basis of its core values, I look at the behaviour of various species of the animal kingdom. In nature, there are many examples of living organisms which work together to achieve great things. These include basics of life like provision of food, shelter or protection from harm as well as passing on their genes to the next generation. Here are a few examples of such organisms:-

1. Insects like bees building natural hives and ants building highly organised anthills with the productions of pheromones influencing the organised behaviour.
2. The schooling of fish like herrings and the flocking of birds like starlings probably give them some protection from predators. Here the individuals follow simple rules giving rise to greater emergent behaviour.
3. Higher animals like wolves hunt in packs and in so doing increase their chances of success. Here there is clear division of labour among the participants. There is also a common purpose and perseverance among other qualities.

When it comes to humans, we have become the masters of this. In addition to the basic requirements of living, humans have another- ‘the wellbeing’ which has many variable factors including love, ego, morality, beliefs and many others that greatly affect behaviour and complicate the purpose for unity.

Unity has been talked about since time immemorial as something very desirable and beneficial. Countries have emerged and empires have been built. Organisations have been formed. Over the centuries, these things have happened and yet we are still learning to perfect unity.

In my autobiography-‘The bugs doctor with a passion for music’ when discussing the problems facing the NHS, I go into a lot of details to emphasise the strengthening the individual department as a prerequisite to having good hospitals. I stressed the importance of having good and carefully selected heads of service. Good departments make good hospitals and in turn these make good NHS and not the other way round. What does not work is when some or all malfunctioning departments are forced form a large organisation managed from the centre. What really works is the coalition of the willing and the able. Unity for the sake of unity without careful scrutiny of the individual components may not have the desired effects.

Outside the NHS, I reckon that these principles apply to trading pacts, union of countries and federal systems within countries to mention but a few. Lasting unity can be achieved if the parts of the union are fully functional and efficient with a common purpose but with some degree of flexibility.