Imaginative representations of illicit and conflict diamonds in the Sierra Leone Civil War: from paradox and ambiguity to traumatized national psychology

Abstract

The history of Sierra Leone cannot be fully understood without reference to the connections between diamonds and politics. The economy of Sierra Leone is so closely tied to revenue from diamonds that the success or failure of government rests to a large extent on its exploration. The crucial role of diamonds in the politics of Sierra Leone, especially its connections to power and hegemony, makes it a potential source of conflict. In the corpus of Sierra Leonean literature, diamonds and its role in the civil war provide tremendous material for artistic and creative expressions. From a literary and historical perspective, I explore the role of conflict diamonds in the war. Broadly speaking, I frame my argument on the premise that the literature of Sierra Leone depicts the ambivalence of diamonds in a dichotomy between curse and blessing. From this overall picture of ambiguity, I argue that the carnage resulting from conflict diamonds is a metonymic representation of a disfigured body politic. I use bodily disfiguration of amputees to theorize the connections between bodily injury and national identity, and make the case for using bodily injury as metaphor of a traumatized nation. I conclude that different stages in the exploration of diamonds have shaped the social and political development of the nation and the kinds of literature written and other aesthetic works produced. Post-war writers are using literature to address the psychological consequences of the atrocities committed during the war to usher a new perspective in Sierra Leonean literature that focuses on trauma and disability as distinct from the construct of ambivalence that characterize earlier forms of writing.