“Poor man goes to heaven and rich man goes to hell”, preached the passionate pastor at the Sunday mass. Sitting in the Jesus Evangelistic Mission Chapel, I noticed how the minimalist church received rich donations from attendees ranging from 6-month-old babies to 70-year olds. People who looked like they did not have the means to buy their next meal were coughing up Le 10,000 (little over $1) at every round of collection. Having lived in West Africa for a few months now, it is difficult to overlook the extent of influence that religion has on the society here. From posters to playlists, the Abrahamic gods get featured everywhere. In regions where traditional religions survived the colonial wave, voodoo, black magic and other forms of belief guide the way.

For a country with almost 70% of the population below the poverty line, it seemed rather intriguing that people turned to religion for hope and better life, rather than the government. It got me wondering if there is a correlation between religiosity and poverty.

The Telegraph recently mapped out the world’s most and least religious countries in the world. I did a side by side comparison of the GDP and the corruption perception index for the 10 most religious countries:

Country	*GDP (in $)	**Corruption Index (rank)
Ethiopa	80 billion	107
Malawi	6 billion	122
Niger	8 billion	112
Sri Lanka	87 billion	91
Yemen	18 billion	175
Burundi	3 billion	157
Djibouti	2 billion	122
Mauritiana	5 billion	143
Somalia	7 billion	180
Afghanistan	20 billion	177

Comparing that with the list of 10 least religious countries:

Country	*GDP (in $)	**Corruption Index (rank)
China	12 trillion	77
Japan	4 trillion	20
Estonia	25 billion	21
Sweden	538 billion	6
Norway	399 billion	3
Czech Republic	216 billion	42
Hongkong	341 billion	13
Netherlands	826 billion	8
Israel	351 billion	32
UK	3 trillion	8

*Based on World Bank Data

**Sourced from Corruptive Perception Index, 2017 (Transparency International)

The overarching trend seems to be that poorer countries with corrupt institutions are also characterized by greater religiosity. On the other hand, the 10 least religious countries have larger GDPs and are characterized by relatively lower levels of corruption.  What could link together these moving pieces? One potential explanation could be that there are lack of adequate safety nets and opportunities in low GDP countries. Hence, people have no real scope for upward mobility and rely on religion for comfort. Doom and gloom predictions about the trials and tribulations that humanity will face may help some people attribute a higher purpose to their suffering, explaining it as “part of God’s ultimate plan.”

Furthermore, these local religious institutions may also provide for people’s basic needs through free childcare programs, food pantries, and clothing drives, contributing to a greater sense of faith.

However, these top-level observations cannot be taken at face value. There are undoubtedly more complex mechanisms at play linking faith, state behavior and economic growth. That said, it is interesting to note these patterns for what it is worth.

These observations pose some deeper, yet fascinating questions: Is faith relevant only as long as material possessions are missing? Does government have the capacity and ability to ‘play god’ for all practical purposes of assuring human safety and well-being?

Who has the answers………god knows!

As I walked into the room where an event by Sierra Leone Red Cross was hosted, several necks craned to see the foreigner. As the morning progressed, each speaker addressed me in their remarks, reiterated points from my speech and made constant eye contact, almost at the cost of sidelining other guests. I felt important and powerful but could not justify all the attention to my work or the organization I represented. Afterall, there were several others in the room doing equally important work.

I knew it was something much deeper and for the first time, I had taken the time to notice my privilege as a lighter-skinned foreigner in Sierra Leone.

As I introspected, a lot of things started to make more sense. Like the time a 14-year old told me she preferred my fairer skin over her own dark skin, or the time I walked into a store and got a major discount while everyone else paid the full price, or when people let me jump the queue to buy tickets.….it seemed like I had been rolling in privilege without ever noticing it. How would I? Afterall, it felt so comforting and empowering.

 These instances got me thinking about the paradoxes of privilege. In Sierra Leone, I felt privileged because of my skin color and economic status, but simultaneously felt underprivileged because of my gender. Casual sexism, unwarranted remarks and the struggle to appear credible continue to be everyday challenges. So, can we be relatively privileged and underprivileged at the same time? When these play out in everyday life, which identity subsumes the others? These thoughts raised the broader question of  ‘how much insight do we actually have about our privileges?’

This question is critical because the extent of insight shapes our worldview and influences how we make sense of topics ranging from feminism and racism to caste. For feminism, eliminating ‘male privilege’ is a quintessential part of progress. But it is often hard for several men to spot this privilege and acknowledge it, let alone work towards rejecting it. As reiterated earlier, this is not an easy process. Acknowledging privilege often involves attributing entitlements to something we are born with (labelled ascribed status in sociology) like skin color, sex, caste, social class of parents, rather than what we acquire owing to our hard-work and achievements (labelled acquired status). Given our tendency to attribute successes to one’s own achievements, there is often ignorance or even denial surrounding privileges we are born with.

This is also reflected in debates surrounding caste, which engender the critical question of ‘how do we reject a system that discriminates people based on archaic notions of social stratification’? For some, the solution is to ‘reject casteism by ignoring it’. Afterall, if you want to do away something, the idea is to not pay attention to it, so it perishes over time. However, this line is thinking becomes possible only when someone has the privilege to ignore its influence. To be able to ignore it requires entitlements to be bestowed upon us.

This is all to say that the idea of privilege is a continuum. Each of us forms opinions and worldviews depending on our ascribed and acquired statuses. While there exist different shades of privilege, it is increasingly becoming hard for one shade to recognize and empathize with the other in today’s world. Perhaps it is time rethink the color palette of privilege.

Driving around the largest diamond mine in Sierra Leone, I was told that the massive  mountain hid unimaginable riches. Wealth enough to lift thousands out of poverty, to provide basic necessities like clean drinking water, schools, hospitals and to bring the fragile $1.9 billion economy back on its feet.

Curious to see this mine from the inside, we started making our way in only to have the car promptly stopped by armed security guards. “Get permission from Freetown” ordered the man, who thought we were journalists in Kono with a mission of exposing labor practices and conditions inside the mine.

His concern was understandable, for the mining industry has a dark underbelly in this country. Diamonds fueled the brutal 11 year-civil war and engendered the infamous ‘Conflict Diamonds’ market. As diamonds left the borders, weapons flowed in and smuggling flourished. Since the end of the war in 2002, it was anticipated that diamonds could be legally channelized to bring revenues into the country. But little has changed since then. The diamond mining industry currently employs around 300,000 to 400,000 people, making it the second-largest employment generating sector after agriculture. However, standard of living and wages on an average have failed to ameliorate.

Picture this….an average miner starts his day at dawn and keeps digging until late evening, sieving through dust, grime and mud in the hopes of finding one precious stone. For this, the miner is provided one meal a day and a small wage, enough to fill neither his/her belly nor their wallet. If they get lucky and find a diamond, they sell it to their boss and get half the value. For a small rough diamond (like the one in the picture), this translates to receiving a meagre $26.

It is intriguing to observe how a country that is so generously endowed in resources is so poorly developed. Logically, more resources should mean a country can export more, generate employment and hence be richer, right? Not necessarily. This dissonance is best explained by the concept of ‘Resource Curse’ (or Paradox of Plenty), which states that countries endowed with a rich source of natural resources struggle to make effective use of them. Governments in these states respond ineffectively to public welfare needs and tend to experience higher rates of conflict, instability, corruption and lower rates of economic growth. History offers a plethora of examples of this including Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Venezuela and Iraq, among several others.

In the case of Sierra Leone, lack of functioning institutions and competition over ownership seems to be at the core of the problem. Mining is not mechanized and highly unregulated. Additionally, corruption is endemic, contributing to an unsustainable parallel economy.  Changing this trend poses a chicken and egg problem: Should strong institutions that are transparent, regulated and fair be developed first so that the diamond industry can pick up? Or will revenue from diamonds eventually pave way for greater development and better institutions? Basically, the million-dollar question is how to escape resource curse and where do we start?

While these critical questions are being raised, diamond miners in Sierra Leone continue digging not just to find diamonds but to lift themselves out of poverty. Perhaps we should be thinking harder the next time we walk into a jewelry store and admire those shiny diamonds. The sparkly stones may have some dark beginnings afterall.

‘Kushe’ or ‘Hello’ was the first word I picked up in Krio, the most widely spoken language in Sierra Leone. In an attempt to show-off the little Krio that I had learnt, I greeted my colleagues with ‘Kushe’ and was stumped to receive a ‘Namaste’ in return!

That evening as the car radio blasted Justin Bieber and Beyonce songs, an old Bollywood song “Kya Kehna” came on. I watched in absolute wonder as the driver hummed the song and spoke about how Indian music is quite catchy and popular all across the country! Surprises kept flowing in as a man from Guinea engaged me in a 30-minute conversation in French on how Amitabh Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor should act in more films!

Not anticipating the Bollywood fanfare, I dug deeper to find out why, how and in what forms does India exert its influence in Sierra Leone. Turns out that among the foreign communities in Sierra Leone, 3 of them stand out distinctly: Europeans, Lebanese and Indians. While there is decent literature on the first 2, very little has been written about the Indian community, partly because they have been a much smaller group and did not spread all over the country like the rest.

From interacting with the locals, I learnt that the Indian community in Sierra Leone, and specifically in Kono district, is most actively engaged in the business of brewery and distillery production of alcohol. A lot of Indian businessmen were previously involved in the diamond trade prior to the civil war. When the war broke out in 1991, most fled the country and since then, the Lebanese traders have been leading the diamond business.

Perhaps the existence of an Indian community that has been long involved in trade could have paved way for the spread of Indian culture through mediums like films, music and cuisine. In modern parlance, this is called Soft power – a term coined by neo-liberal academician Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ‘ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion’.  Since the term was first introduced in 1990, it has been increasingly used in the context of improving social and public perception through culture, sport, cuisine, art etc. Today, soft power is used almost as analogous with the power of culture.

Hence, it is possible to argue that India has been successfully capitalizing on its power of culture.  As of date, Sierra Leone imports close to $85 million worth of goods annually from India, making India the third largest import origin country after China ($236 million) and the United States ($90 million).  Given this, it is no surprise that TVS bikes from India are a common sight on the streets here.

Additionally, the fact that both countries share a colonial past and are members of the Commonwealth feeds into the perception of Soft Power, with India being seen as the success story.

Trying to understand Indian influence through the lens of ‘Soft Power’ raises some broader questions. What are the limits to soft power? And how do we know when it translates to tangible influence? Can soft power without hard power backing (through a strong military or robust economy) still be effective?

I hope to research further and find answers to these questions. Meanwhile, my lesson for now is: when someone says namaste, learn to ask in Krio “Do you watch Indian movies?”