Since our last post on her, Maya Arulpragasm’s only gotten more exposure. Her very limited tour in North America (LA, New York and Toronto) was well received. At the same time, her LTTE sympathies are getting more exposure. Does it help to make the Tigers more acceptable or is it, as one review of her new album Arular implies (registration required), serving to moderate the politics behind it?
“[A]s good as it is, Arular lacks something vital, though perhaps amorphous: danger. Sure, ‘Sunflowers’ is a sympathetic portrait of suicide bombing, but its poppy singsong chorus and overwhelming charm leads one to envision Harry himself getting down to it with Wills and the other inbred aristocrats at some London hotspot. As the similarly subcontinent-rooted Gayatri Spivak might say, M.I.A. is perilously close to becoming a native informant, spilling the secrets of her culture (and all ‘culture’ for mass consumption (and conception).”
Even if the song is great, and I do think it’s great, it’s hard not to read the lyrics to Sunshowers as an apology for indiscriminate suicide bombing and Tiger terrorism. (On reconsideration: maybe not so clearly an apology.)
“its a bomb yo
so run yo
put away your stupid gun yo
‘cos we see through like a protocol call
thats why we blow it up ‘fore we gothe sunshowers that fall on my troubles
are you over my baby
and some showers I’ll be aiming at you
‘cos i’m watching you my babysemi-9 and snipered him
on that wall they posted him
they cornered him
And Then Just Murdered Himhe told them he didn’t know them
he wasn’t there they didn’t know him
they showed him a picture then
ain’t that you with the muslims?”
This Sunshowers video plays up the LTTE theme.