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M.I.A. Goes to War
But what does that have to do with paper planes? The chorus goes—“I fly like paper, get high like planes/ if you catch me at the border I got visas in my name/ if you come around here I make ‘em all day”. So what do the paper planes represent? “We make our own visas,” she says. “A paper plane is the visa itself.”
The other big headline in M.I.A.’s life is that she’s about to have a baby. It’s due on the day of the Grammys, Sunday, February 8, but it could come any day now. She doesn’t know the gender. She and her fiancé, Ben Brewer, singer and guitarist for The Exit, resisted peeking during the sonograms. Except for the one time they cracked. “I was really itching to find out and we just went, fuck it and called the doctor. But, because every time we went in there we said we don’t wanna know, it was never written down so he couldn’t tell us. That’s a sign.”
And she doesn’t want to have the baby in a hospital. “I’m doin’ it at home,” she says proudly. “In the water. In a pool.” So, no epidural—the drug that helps ease the excruciating pain of birth? “That’s the plan,” she says proudly. “You gotta embrace the pain, embrace the struggle. And my giving birth struggle is nothing when I think about all the people in Sri Lanka that have to give birth in a concentration camp as we speak, with no food and shelter and blankets and medicine and clean anything. I think I’m in a bit of a luxury situation. I have a midwife and I have my man. That’s kind of enough to get through.”
She’s pained that her child may never see Sri Lanka—as a Tamil she’s barred from entering the country. “I’ve had this conversation with my baby and he—I think it’s a he—but either way my baby’s part Tamil and I wanna be able to take the baby back to Sri Lanka and be like this is where you come from child, but I can’t. I feel like, hopefully the baby will forgive me.” I’m sure he or she will—as the child of M.I.A. it’ll undoubtedly see almost every other country in the world as it follows a mom who intends on continuing her artistic endeavors—she also directs music videos, makes visual art, and designs clothing. “The baby’s just gonna be in my studio, which’ll just be at home now. Whether I’m making a video for someone or making my own artwork or making a song, ya know, the baby’s just gonna relax and hang out in my studio. That’s how it was when I was growing up. When we were in Sri Lanka, my mom made clothes for people for $5 an hour or something and she used to just be sewing all the time and we used to play under the table while she sewed. I used to wait for the bits of cloth that she was cutting to drop off the table, ‘cuz whatever falls on the floor is mine. It made me creative.”
The notion of M.I.A. concentrating deeply on her art while the baby quietly hangs out in the studio is funny, but like every parent/artist she’ll get used to making compromises. She’s already starting—they’ve asked her to perform at the Grammys, to do her lines from "Paper Planes" that were sampled for the chorus for “Swagger Like Us,” featuring Jay-Z, Kanye, Lil Wayne, and T.I.—probably the hottest hip-hop song of the summer. But if the baby doesn’t come before the Grammys it’ll be a tenuous moment. “I may have to do it in my hospital gown in case the water breaks,” she says. “I said I’ll do it if they have a helicopter ready to airlift me back home. I been reading books where if you eat something hot or arm wrestle someone you can have labor come on and I feel like being on the stage with Jay-Z, Kanye, T.I., and Lil Wayne, singing ‘no one on the corner’s got swagger like me’ might bring on my labor.”
Touré is the host of BET’s The Black Carpet and the host of Treasure HD’s I’ll Try Anything Once. He is the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land.
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Touré is a columnist for The Daily Beast. He's also an NBC contributor and the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN's first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times.
Xelene
Alright Daily Beast readers. I do not think Ms. Arulpragasam is aware that there are actual Sri Lankans reading the beast, and yet again, she is WRONG. She is lying on a public forum, and this sob story about having been shot is complete Bull. She lived in the UK for most of her life, before living in Brooklyn, NY. The LTTE, which she tries to label as a bunch of Kumbaya singing peacenicks is actually the very first guerilla terrorist group to use suicide bombers so effectively. She fails to see how the entire country has been set up with bunkers and baracks for check points. She also fails to mention how post 9/11, the LTTE TOO has been rightly listed as a TERRORIST GROUP.
There are no concentration camps in Sri Lanka, and what goes on is NOTHING like Nazi Germany. Only the hard line terrorists now occupy the northern fight zones, they have been evacuated of all civilians. There is no ethnic cleansing going on. She is a liar!
Xelene
Also - I find in interesting that MIA is allowed to write her pieces and sing her little songs, after all, could an Al Qaida sympathizer ever do anything in its defense in this country? I don't think so! The LTTE is Sri Lanka's Al Qaida. It's time the world understood this
billybob
pretty sure she said she was shot at?? also the article mentioned that they used terrorist tactics.... what's up with the hate man
stellamaris
shot or shot at? whats the difference. i know for a fact that M.I.A had to flee sri lanka with her family for fear of their lives b'cuz her father belonged to an anti-government group, and he was labeled a terrorist. M.I.A talks from first hand experience...she has lived it, and she represents the tamil struggle in sri lanka. anyone who is against her, what she represents or what she is trying to do is a HATER and doesn't want the world to see the atrocities which are being committed in sr lanka.
thanga
Thanks M.I.A for bringing out the GENOCIDE of tamils in Lanka. Daiyl about 50 to 1000 civilians are killed by the armed forces. A local doctor has commented that Lanka government is pursuing a 2 pronged genocide. Kill by shells and kill by denying medical facility. Tamils living in the government control go 'disappear' at an alarming rate. The civilians surrendered to the army are put in camps with men 'disappearing' and women being abused. There are no international monitors. Lanka has driven out all aid agencies by killing their members. French 'Action Against Hunger' pulled out of lanka after army killed 17 aid workers in a day (google it). See the HRW reports. www.tamilnet.com see the plight of civilians in youtube. here is a very short history http://www.MegaShare.com/580525
tamilnation-org
pls stop posting lies about MIA.
She is not support any group. She is simply asking SL-State to STOP KILLING the innocent Tamil (ethnic-minority) civilians.
Readers, don't be fooled by the Sinhala people (the pro-SL govt ppl) writing lies about MIA. (Sinhala is the ethnic-Majority in SL)
true story is at www.tamilnation.org
nicole007
what is happening in Sri Lanka is a civil war that has destroyed thousands of lives...though the Tamil Tigers have used terrorist tactics, it is the only way they have to have their voice heard against a corrupt government that wants to destroy the Tamil culture and its people...the Tigers may use suicide bombers, etc. but the government has used its powers to quiet any dissent (i.e. have you arrested and never seen from again) and ruined many more lives of people that want nothing more than control of their own land and a culture to be proud of!
M.I.A. good on ya for using your voice for peace!
UKlankan
As Tamils we should be so proud of this young girl. i was directed from one racisit sinhala srilankan website hate campaign agaist MIA to this blog. therefore dont be surprised to see many anti tamil comment and anti MIA Comment.
there are thousands of people were abducted and killed by srilankan forces in the last few months alone.
and as we speak there are large number of males and females are taken by police and army and many womens are raped and killed by the security forces sinhala newspaper reporting it.
Artillery-fired cluster shells, aerial bombing on safety zone, 39 civilians killed
here is typical killing that happens in srilanka.
[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 January 2009, 17:44 GMT]
For the first time within the safety zone, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers Saturday attacked Moongkilaa'ru and Chuthanthirapuram. Relentless artillery fire also continued throughout the day on civilian targets. 39 civilians were killed and 128 wounded in the indiscriminate attacks. Artillery-fired cluster munitions were used in the attacks by the SLA against civilians targets
today in london UK over 100,000 protested against the killing of tamils in srilanka. and no media reported, because these media sytamatically aiding the genocide.(not even a word in BBC)
but MIA as a single person at least making it aware to the world. and we tamils salute her. we love you girl, god bless you.
tomatom
Tiny Island????? Check your facts. 20 million people live there.
tanwam
Wow M.I.A forgot to mention all the ransoms that LTTE has gotten from tamil civilians through blackmailing and threats..
It was the LTTE who started this bloody war to begin with.It's really sad to see what this country had come to as a result of it.Now she is going around promoting the terrorist group.
LankanWonder
Uhm okay, to the first comment on this article. If you are not living in that country, have no clue about what is going on, and someone decides to spill the truth, and you get mad, it's obviously because you don't wanna open your mind to see that there is things as horrible as MIA is saying occuring in the world at this moment. And just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. So please, if you can't have an open mind about such a deadly situation, just shut your fucking mouth and let the people who wanna stop this, do it. Because frankly, you're mouth is not needed during a time of such despair. While so many lives are being tortured and killed, you wanna run your mouth about someone who is actually trying to do some good, jus because you're not the one in the video making a difference, don't hate and get the fuck outta here cause noone needs your bullshit.
clarktierneyx1
I find it interesting tha M>I>A> thinks you need to be from a specific country to say something about the plight of it's people. If that were the case, then she shouldn't have anything to say about anywhere in the world except where she is from.In case she hasn't realized it, the world is ONE PLACE.
Her attitude reflects the entire problem. Thank you, M.I.A.
nopace1
Xelene, it's not a matter of Maya being right or wrong. Her stated goal is to expose a conflict that's become a genocide. Does the labeling of the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization justify the genocide of Tamil people? Or did they use terrorist tactics in response to state-sponsored terrorism against them? These are big questions that have no right or wrong. What I appreciate about this article and Maya in particular is her courage to use her spotlight to raise these issues. She is the voice of millions and millions of immigrants all over the world and History will remember her. Oh and the Bono line is priceless...
balans
one man terrorist another man's freedom fighter. in the name of war on terror, the atrocites commited by some countries against the people is unbelivable.Sri Lanka will be the # 1 for state terrorisam. I admire M.I.A for standing up for Tamils as she is the only Tamil who has the access to western media. I would like to THANK her for stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing at the right time for the people who have been sffering for long time under the brutal regimes.
thanga
Another 40 civilians killed on Sunday Feb 1st. Also SriLanka has issued the following warning (google for this AP news):
Sri Lanka's hardline government warned Sunday that Western ambassadors, news agencies and INGOs of "dire consequences" if they attempt to give the LTTE a second breath of life. "They will be chased away (if they try) to give a second wind to the LTTE terrorists at a time the security forces, at heavy cost, are dealing them the final death blow," Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa told The Sunday Island
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