Ghana ThinkTank

Whether motivated by generosity or greed, the language of “international development” often reinforces feelings of superiority on the part of “First World” citizens. Given the long and destructive history of colonialism and imperialism, these feelings of superiority can perpetuate rather than alleviate inequality. They also distract from the fact that the quality of life in the US has been declining for the past 30 years.

The Ghana ThinkTank — a network of “Third World” think tanks devising solutions for “First World” problems — flips this script. The network began with think tanks in Ghana, Cuba, and El Salvador, and has since expanded to include Gaza Strip, Iran, Morocco, Mexico, Indonesia, and a group of incarcerated young women in the US prison system.

Lists of problems — obesity, crime, depression, racism, boring meetings — are collected from residents in American and European cities, then sent to the think tanks in the “developing” world to analyze. These think tanks devise solutions, which are then implemented in the city where the problems originated. Each stage of the process is videotaped and shown as part of a gallery/museum exhibit. Local residents and gallery attendees are invited to help enact the solutions, or submit their own problems. Problems can range from the deeply personal, such as, “Yesterday I pretended to be bisexual to be accepted,” to the societal, “the elderly are treated like a burden,” to the nonsensical, “the city of Karlsruhe is too flat and boring.”

The project has always been a bold mix of symbolic provocation and real-world problem-solving.

By reversing the usual roles of helper and helped, GTT creates a rare and entertaining avenue for sustained intercultural dialogue among groups with radically different experiences. As one culture contemplates the woes of the other, alternate perspectives emerge, with thoughtful (and often playful) commentary and intercultural critique interacting in interesting ways with stereotypes. “People in the US emphasize education in order to maintain a system of worldwide domination,” said Salvadorans about the US. Mexico responded to the problem of generation gaps by saying “Latinos respect their elders, African-Americans do, and Asians do. It is because white people are in charge in Westport, Connecticut, that old people are mistreated,” while Ghana asserted that “Westerners stress too much on individualism.”

At the conclusion of the discussion, each think tank proposes solutions to the problems they have reviewed. Some of these suggestions have produced workable solutions, while others have created intensely awkward (and revealing) situations.

The think tank in Iran suggested that the reason old people are seen as a burden to society in Britain is because young people think old people have never done anything interesting, and so can't relate to them. The proposed solution: interview old people about their funny dirty memories, and play them for young people on mp3s. And so, we approached elders on the streets and bars in Cardiff and solicited raunchy stories from their youthful romantic exploits.

"We are almost all white and wealthy," residents of Westport, CT (one of the wealthiest cities in the US) complained. The think tank in El Salvador responded, “we bet there's plenty of diversity there — I mean, who fixes your houses and tends your yards? I bet they don't look like you.” The Salvadorans suggested hiring immigrant day laborers to attend social functions in Westport, CT — which we did, at the same rate as their day laborer jobs, $15/hr.

GTT has also used their same unexpected bridge-building model in zones of conflict around the world, from Mitrovica, Kosovo where GTT brought bitterly divided Serbs and Albanians together to try to solve each other's problems, to the increasingly militarized US-Mexico border where GTT asked undocumented immigrants to solve the problems border vigilantes were facing. Shortly after violence erupted in the Middle East over the Youtube video "The Innocence of Muslims," the US State Department and Bronx Museum selected GTT to work as cultural ambassadors in Morocco. Using a donkey cart transformed into a solar powered media center as our base, we traveled through rural villages petitioning Moroccans for help solving America's problems.

The project has always been a bold mix of symbolic provocation and real-world problem-solving. Lately, it has taken up solutions of greater consequence. Case in point: The American Riad is working with GTT’s Indonesian and Moroccan think tanks in Detroit to build a 14-unit housing/business development using Islamic-Moroccan architectural principles (designed by internationally-known Syrian architect Dr. Marwa Al-Sabouni from the bombed city of Homs). Barn-raising, or should we say Riad-raising, should be completed in 2019.

All the problem-solving aside, GTT’s major goal is to connect people in intimate and meaningful ways in defiance of prejudice, racism, geographic barriers, and ethnic conflict. By redefining think tanks as groups of ordinary people who can solve complex problems, we are transforming the concept of a think tank from a group of highly-educated elites advising vulnerable and needy foreigners into a group of local citizens capable of solving global problems using the wisdom derived from their daily experience.