This is a guest post by YaliniDream. Please take a look at her beautiful newly-launched website at http://www.yalinidream.com!
When MIA drops in the club I rep hard. Growing up most my life in the US where few folx know the island Sri Lanka and my ethnic identity is seen ambiguous at the least, it feels good to pop my body to another Lankan Tamil’s Sister’s lyrics mixed over some sick beats.
But my props for MIA is perhaps as complicated and contradictory as the artist herself. As a Lankan Tamil Female performer, I know too much to love her without a good dose of haterade.
I became a hater after I saw MIA at NYC Summerstage ’06. What did I want really? For MIA to have a nuanced political message about our homeland? To most folk Sri Lanka’s just another murky violent third world country at war. Screwed up enough to give you some street cred, but try to break things down on the real and people get confused. But still when I saw that cardboard Tiger and helicopter on stage and her backup dancers in booty shorts and tiger stripes-- it rode my nerves. I know that politics in Sri Lanka can feel like a kitschy stage show, but real lives ARE at stake. Uncomplicated cheesy references to the Tigers— the rebel group that claimed to be fighting for our people’s freedom--was a problem to me. There is a difference between state terror and militant groups deemed terrorists that rise in opposition to the state. The state has more power. And that needs to be recognized. But that doesn’t make the Tigers automatically “cool.” The Tigers--well their little power was mostly over our own people. And they abused that power to recruit child soldiers, silence our people, and track into suicide bombing young women who saw nothing left for their lives but martyrdom. That's as “uncool” and “whack” as the monstrosities they were fighting.
So yeah, I am proud of MIA for doing her damn thing. But I’m critical. On a political tip I’ve come not to expect much more from her than pop politics and terrorist chic. And at the end of the day I just look to MIA for a decent joint in the club that I can break it off to.
That’s where I was coming from when I clicked play on her newest video “Born Free” that debuted this past Monday. If you haven’t heard the video’s gotten a lotta heat and was pulled off of youtube. The video portrays a distopic reality where the state raids people’s homes and violently disappears young white men with red hair. The young red heads are taken to a mine field. What follows is gruesome, brutal and not something I was able to stomach more than twice.
The video directed by French Filmmaker Romain Gavras skillfully uses tricks and devices western audiences have gotten all too used to in films and video games. It’s violent, sensational, gritty and no doubt intended to shock. MIA’s song ( whose lyrics seem more about industry angst than state power [—I guess it could be it could be metaphoric]) drives the video with its high energy and fast beats.
No doubt, I could get away with my hateration, call this video terrorist chic and leave it at that. Except watching it was more than that for me.
I couldn’t help but think of the Sri Lankan Government’s last bloody military offensive against the Tigers that ended the longest civil war in Asia. I thought of the videos on CNN of Sri Lankan soldiers making jokes as they shot naked, bound Tamil men in the back of the head. I thought of the shellings of civilian areas. The killing of child soldiers that had been forced into fighting. The disappearances. And the lies that continue to spew from the Sri Lankan government’s mouth. The war in Sri Lanka was between two brutal forces. The Tigers are gone but the Government of Sri Lanka is still there.
The video also spoke to contexts beyond Sri Lanka. I thought of Guantanamo & Abu Ghraib. The way state power feels justified in terrorizing people in their hunts for Hamas, the Taliban, or Iraqi insurgents. And how could I watch all those red heads and not think of the IRA or …the red scare? I thought of Arizona and the US Mexican border. I thought about the young men in the video inescapably running “free” through a land full of mines. I thought about the soldiers watching the soldiers and the multiple ways the state has its own back. I wondered if watching these horrific acts against white bodies would garner more disgust, shock, or sympathy than the images of repression against brown bodies that TV audiences seem so used to. Or will it just remain entertainment? Just an “oh snap!” at the exploding limbs and well done editing tricks.
At the very least MIA’s video is a social experiment that toys with Western contradictions. It calls into question why some violence in the news, video games, and films are sanctioned and others censored. For MIA as a Brown woman in a post September 11th War on Terror context, putting out a video like this is a risk. And I’d much rather see a sharp look at state power than “being a rebel is cool!” kitsch. So for that, this hater gives MIA props.
Link to "Born Free" video: http://www.miauk.com/
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