does anyone know if it's true? i heard the rumor from a sri lankan activist pal...

(sorry for ruining your game abhi, but i know your committment to The People is greater than your libido ;)

It's true Sanjay. If memory serves me right, there was an interview with her in Nirali where she said her dad was a founding member of the LTTE...

I too was saddened. I can't support an artist that openly supports an organization using suicide bombers and child soldiers :-(

From her website:

"Mayas parents lived separately because of her father's increasing commitment to Tamil politics and the movement for independence. As war broke out, her Dad would occasionally visit them, usually in secret or hiding from the army because he was becoming a known figure in the Tamil rebellion."

That's okay, I ain't hating. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. Gotta give her the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah, according to her, her dad was one of the founders of the LTTE:

She grew up in civil-war torn Sri Lanka -- a 22-year conflict that's killed 65,000, currently under an uneasy ceasefire -- as the daughter of one of the founders of the Tamil Tigers, a guerrilla organization that has been classified as terrorists by the US government and accused of recruiting child soldiers by UNICEF.

"That's why I wrote the song 'Sunshowers,'" Maya says over the phone from Berlin before a gig. "You can't separate the world into two parts like that, good and evil. Terrorism is a method. But America has successfully tied all these pockets of independent struggles, revolutions and extremists into one big notion of terrorism."

Most brazenly, she shout-outs the Palestinians ("Like P.L.O., we don't surrend-o") but also sprinkles guerrilla imagery like she salts and peppers her mango, chatting about snipers, bomb blasts and street-side murders. The India-filmed video replaces hip-hop's familiar housing-project backdrop with a lush, tiger-filled jungle through which M.I.A. stalks, and even the sweetly sung chorus, interpolated from a similarly-named '70s single, takes a threatening turn in Maya's hands: "And some showers I'll be aiming at you / 'Cause I'm watching you, my baby."

Not surprisingly, MTV has requested she clarify the song with a statement before they'll screen the video.

"My answer to that is that when you watch TV and flick onto the news channel, that's what's shown and they don't have to censor that," Maya says. "I wrote this song as a chicken-and-egg story: who's attacking who, who is good, who is evil. You can't grab someone by the neck and choke them and then complain they're kicking you. If you're going around oppressing people, they will fight back."

"I'd seen people die by the time I left," she says. "That's as bad as it could get, when you see people from your village disappearing and not coming back. One minute they're doctors and really respected and the next they're in wheelchairs because they've been 'accidentally' shot. My school was burned down. My family's house was burned down. When we tried to leave Sri Lanka with my mom, the buses we were on would get stopped in the middle of nowhere and people would be taken off and killed.

Her album Arular is named after her dad's rebel codename.

Ever since I saw a NewYorker piece on her I have been waiting to hear her music.and as a fellow tamil albeit from Tamilnadu what can I say?
if you kick people down they will fight back.
and no my dad doesn't ahve to be a founder of LTTE for me to feel that way.

fighting back by murdering civilians, assasinating a prime minister, and oppressing a muslim minority (there are muslim tamilians contrary to popular belief).

I am not saying the sinhalese are innocent, in fact I believe they are more culpable, but I can't accept terrorism as a method. I can't accept that murdering innocent people is some how justified in the name of freedom. Just like I can't accept the massacre of iraqi civilians in the name of democracy

Not sure if anyone is still reading but...

Her dad is Arul, who went to Lebanon in the mid-70s to train with Palestinian groups there. He was trained in explosives, and returned to SL to relay this knowledge to Pirabaharan.

Google "arular" and "lebanon" for verification.

Just to clarify, The LTTE are Freedom Fighters!
Terrorism would be the name of the game for the Sri-Lankan regime that has for over 30 years sought to opress and undermine the rights of the Tamil community within Sri Lanka.
The main conflict began with the burning of the Jaffna library which was home to ancient manuscripts charting the history of Tamils in Sri Lanka. It proved that the Tamils had occupied the country centuries prior to the arrival of the Sinhalese, a fact which the Buddhist clergy in Lanka would never concede to since the revised official history of this Island is that it is the rightful land of the Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamils have no claim to it - at all!
The Jaffna library also housed documented evidence of Tamil ties with the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians. These Ola manuscripts were the only ones in existence and by burning the library the Sinhala Govt knew that all legitimate claims by the Tamils of this being their homeland could never be proven.

With a Govt that instigates mass terrorism in the form of the 1983 riots,setting fire to tamil homes and looting their homes one could be forgiven for questioning just who are the real terrorists.
To date, the LTTE have not intentionally harmed Sinhalese Survillians or Tourists and yet they continue to be scape goated by the SL Govt for attrocities carries out by the Sinhalese extremist left wing Marxist party who continue to maim and kill both the Tamils and Sinhalese. Maybe this is because of the overwhelming supprt of Buddhist clergy!

Well, there you goes. My version of the facts. But can I prove this - Not a chance!

So who do you believe?

Peace

Curt

Maya is an artist who is trying to express her feelings and thoughts! Other famous singers/and music groups have done the same --- U2, Fugees, etc, etc.

Abhi and Sanjay --- Please check out the facts on TRO. TRO is the only effective local NGO doing relief work in the Sri Lankan North-East. It was founded in 1985 and has existed for 20 years to help refugees in the Sri Lankan North-East rebuild their lives.

Once upon a time, I was displaced as well with my family in Northern Sri Lanka. Did the Sinhalese government && Army came for our help? No. TRO did. TRO is not politically motivated and is an non-profit organization.

Latest on Tsunami efforts in Sri Lankan is, Sri Lankan government has imposed duty on Tsunami AID supplies to the North-East!
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=14235

The issue about TRO and Maya's artistic support of the LTTE are separate. The TRO may very well be legit. According to the US State Department, British Foreign Ministry, and Indian government, is the LTTE legit? Hell no.

U2 and the Fugees don't support groups that use suicide bombers, or child bombers, or assasins of Indian prime ministers.

Sri Lankan Tamils have legitimate grievances. Unfortunately the LTTE and its leadership have engaged in a systematic elimination of any opposition - peaceful or not. Does Maya support the LTTE? Apparently so (see Abhi's posting above).

Rajiv Gandhi, Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam, and other peaceful Tamils engaging in political debate - you know their blood still cries from the ground.

(goodness I'm going to get flamed to the ground for this post. Thankfully I'm the Anonymous Cow).

I may not agree with her politics, but I like her music. The Vedas tell us that every human is a combination of god and demon - it is up to us to celebrate the good in people, and work against the bad. If all you want to do is put M.I.A. or anyone down because of their political leanings, you're missing out on a whole lot in life. Unclench and live a little.

If all you want to do is put M.I.A. or anyone down because of their political leanings...

God forbid we should put down the supporters of Al Qaeda for their political leanings. That would be, y'know, clenched.

People have good and bad in them. Are you saying that you are wholly good? Believe it or not, there is beauty in all things. Now, be a good boy, and go read your Puranas.

I respect M.I.A. as a human being. But I don't respect her music, which in my opinion is an instrument of destruction and hate.

I wonder what you would say about RaHoWa... (Racial Holy War - the preeminent racist band of America); I don't think you would be consistent in your beliefs in regards to them.

As for being clenched up, if that is what I am, then I'm damn proud of it. You see, I have standards and I live by them.

It breaks down like this. I don't have to like these groups to like their work. This takes us back to the age-old debate of a person and his/her work; can they be truly separate and judged individually?

Elia Kazan is greatly reviled (by me, too) for blacklisting Hollywood workers for being Communist, but does that make his work bad as well? Are On The Waterfront, Gentleman's Agreement and his Broadway hits rendered inferior because of his association with HUAC?

If we are to go through life only seeing the bad and unswallowable in whole groups of people, how do we make progress?

I see M.I.A.'s music as being inextricably linked to LTTE propaganda (consider the "Sunflower" lyrics and video). Apparently, you do not, which seems to explain why you have no problem with her music.

Again, personally speaking, I draw the line at when an artist supports a group using immoral tactics.

The work is related to but not identical to the artist, of course. I quite dig M.I.A.'s music. There's even a slightly macabre show that ran in New York recently about German pop art during the Nazi era, which even the NYT found beautiful. It's not a matter of looking for people to hate, rather whether my dollars to the artist are going to support terrorism, and how direct the link is.

um...i'm not going to say anything after this comment, but i think that ur labeling of the LTTE as terrorists because of the assassination of rajiv gandhi and other tamil politicians as well as the use of suicide bombings is wrong. Rajiv Gandhi deserved to be killed, it was his fault that more than 6,000 innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka were murdered..the IPKF was more brutal than the SLA and someone had to be responsible... The LTTE was peaceful with India until they messed with the thamil people...proof? Indira Gandhi, rajiv's mother, was very friendly with the LTTE and supported them... there was no trouble with India until they messed up Sri Lanka.
When you speak of terrorists, people tend to be cold. I think freedom fighters or revolutionaries are much better terms...
i openly and strongly support the LTTE...why? because i've been to Sri Lanka atleast 3 timse, and i've seen the suffering, the chaos, the fear in Thamil people because of the government harrassment and oppression...
it is true that the LTTE has used cold brutal tactics, but i don't think that anyone can say they are inhumane after their efforts after the tsunami. They were organized and efficient in getting aid to the victims of the tsunami...at the same time, the GOSL has proven their inefficiency and irresponsibilities... instead of trying to help all people, they've only been helping out the South-West areas of Sri Lanka...even worse, not only are they ignoring the pleas of the North Eastern areas, they're sabotaging those areas...read this article and u'll see what i'm talking about...
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=14360
yes i know it's from a pro-ltte website, but they have to be cause all other media is biased against the ltte...and there is no such thing as neutrality...

what about the recent killings of political wing members of the LTTE? recently, after the tsunami, there was the assassination of Kousalyan and the shooting of Kuveni, both members of the political wing of the LTTE. these people are the people working for peace, yet the SLA has been attacking and attempting to kill them. Notice i said that the SLA was responsible..all of these killings happened on SLA territory and under the knowledge of the SLA...it is unfair though, because every time the SLA is responsible for something, they can immediately blame it on paramilitaries. But the truth is that they support and harbor those same paramilitaries and get them to do their dirty work.
I don't think any of you have seen the good side of the LTTE...this summer i went to a camp where i met dozens of fighters. THey are people too. and to be honest, these people were the kindest, most humble people i've ever met. Before i met them, i had a general dislike/bitterness towards humanity in general because i believed that all humanity was corrupt..but i've never been treated with such warmth and hospitability. yes, they're cold while in battle, but you have to be cold. you can't show emotion or the other side will kill you at the first chance they get. But once again, these people are human.
I really don't see what is wrong with suicide bombers either. These people give up their lives for a cause, you would never see such acts of loyalty in other armies. Would soldiers of the U.S. army ever give their lives knowing there was no coming back? no.
As for peaceful protest, the Thamil people have fought through peaceful demonstrations for the last 50 years...what did they recieve in return? police/SLA brutality, deeping of oppresive laws by the GOSL, killing of their people. Satyigra (sp?) worked in India, but the british weren't wielding the motive of genocide, they were there for the profit. The GOSL is in it for genocide/elimination, if you've ever read or heard about BLACK JULY of 1983, you'll know what i mean. Systematic slaughter.
The British were also a limited minority, a few soldiers in India, up against hundreds of millions of people. They knew that they couldn't handle an enormous uprising. You didn't have to use violence because your peaceful demonstrations worked. What do you do hear though in Sri Lanka? The GOSL and Buddhist clergy are not for peace, they're not for negotiations, look at this article: http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=14269 what real buddhists would do this?
I hope i closed your eyes or offended any of you in any way, but i just thought you needed to hear this from a different angle. Thank you.

sry, one more thing, like i was saying, this is what happens in SL when people are peacefully protesting: http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=14382

"i openly and strongly support the LTTE"

Really? Strange, I can't seem to find "Anonymous supporter" in my yellow pages.

I've been to LTTE camps as well and yes the hospitality was there and I don't blame the Tamil people for supporting the tigers however the LTTE will not tolerate any political diversity and sytematically kill any other Tamil opposition party members. I've talked with many a Tamil, from Jaffna to Potuvil who hate and fear the Tigers because they don't stand for anything but Tigers. The Jaffna Tamils who control the LTTE discriminate against east coast Tamils and thus Karuna has broken away to represent his people as well. It's all a mess and it doesn't help when Mya who is a little to far removed from what is really going on there and uses the imagery for profit.

When George Washington and his militia rebelled, they were called "rabble rousers". They hid behind trees and fought, and they did ambushes. The Recoats held to the 2-line formation, according to the rules of war, and would've thought of them as terrorists in today's language.

Tecumseh Sherman in his March to the Sea during the American Civil War destroyed everything in his path. The crippling of civilians and their livelihoods was part of his "strong arm tactics" of war. As a result, Confederates fired on civilians, boats, and soldiers in ambushes and civilian areas. Yet we call neither "terrorists".

The leader of FRETILIN, the East Timor independence movement, was called a terrorist by the government. That is, until the Portugese took pity on their former colony (East Timor) stepped in and helped give them independence. Now, history calls Xanana Gusmao a charismatic liberation resistance leader.

Why do people NOT refer to WWII Japanese kamakazi pilots as "terrorists"? (Have you noticed that?) Or maybe even the Viet Cong?

Standing up for what's right, despite the consequences, despite the odds, is something that we respect as bravery. Hats off to M.I.A., she has my deepest respect.

Your 'George Washington' blew up one of my presidents.

Washington did not go around targeting civilians.

There are lots of things we, the U.S., used to do that we no longer consider acceptable: slavery, Japanese prison camps, testing disease vectors on minorities.

Your moral relativism justifies 9/11. After all, who are we to judge?

What's right for Tamils is far, far removed from the LTTE. You, sir, are king of the strawman.

"What's right for Tamils is far, far removed from the LTTE."

That is entirely untrue. And "who are we to judge?" Well, if you insist on judging, then at least use the facts, not just your opinion...

Why was R. Gandhi killed? Why is there a split between the Eastern and Western Tamils? What was going on before the LTTE began fighting? What happened to peaceful protest in Sri Lanka? What is the TRO? What did the LTTE do for the Tamil people following the tsunami?

Shout these things from your soapbox, if you don't mind. The WSJ has a fairly informative article about the last two questions (1/11/05 issue), and the Asia Times has a chronological series about the rest (the U.N. DPI has similar information).

One criticism that is true is that the North is heading toward an authoritarian state in order to implement a doctrine of self-preservation. Does that doctrine work for everyone? No, not necessarily, but it's still beneficial to the majority. Is that the only way Tamils can survive? Well, unfortunately, no one else, not even the Norwegians have been able to come up with a better solution.

Suicide bombers and child-soldiers don't work for you, yet it doesn't occur to you that such things are the acts of desperate people. The U.S. calls the LTTE's actions "terrorism" (and the U.S. is always right), but for people who know what's going on, it's called a "war." The Tamils in Sri Lanka aren't just "uncomfortable," they are suffering, yet there is no support for them, despite that every piece of Sinhalese legislation since 1948 has been aimed at oppressing them.

But Sudanese rebels, you support them, right, because, well, they're suffering from "almost-genocide." The Tamils, on the other hand, aren't worth supporting because they're just suffering from misinformation.

K.R., you are entirely wiser than I am about the nitty-gritty of Tamil history in Sri Lanka. And their oppression in Sri Lanka is truly deplorable.

But you confuse intent with tactics. It does not take a Ph.D. in Tamil history to know that a group which murders civilians, the leader of its own ethnic homeland and its own political opposition over a period of decades is engaging in evil.

You might as well conflate Palestinian complaints (legitimate) with Palestinian suicide bombings (illegitimate), or one's complaints about a lover (legitimate) with the all-too-common response of murder-suicide.

The LTTE did not engage in a single suicide bombing to say 'hey, pay attention to me.' It pioneered a long string of them over decades as calculated acts. Those are not the acts of a desperate group. Those are the acts of a group whose sense of morality has ossified and been lost entirely.

(in response to Manish)

"...murders...the leader of its own ethnic homeland..."

Yes, I think people said the same thing when Lincoln and Kennedy were assassinated, yet, I don't believe the morality of an entire nation was judged vis-a-vis these anomalies. Some say, Kaushalyan was killed by the Sinhalese, which would of course essentially be an act of aggression seen as a precursor to war...

At what point is war actually declared as "war" and by what measure are tactics judged as inhumane? In other words, when does the "state of war" between Tamils and Sinhalese become recognized as such and subsequently, when do LTTE acts of "terrorism" become recognized as routine acts of "war?"

And speaking of acts of war, what exactly is a proportionate response to legislated and subsequently, institutionalized oppression that has killed thousands, more, over a ~50year period? A satyagraha movement? I believe that was tried and ironically, it might of worked if India hadn't supported an armed separatist movement in the '70s and '80s.

Tactics? Look at the civilian killings you are referring to and see if the intended target was civilian or political/military. Collateral casualities are never acceptable, but there is a difference between the LTTE's "tactics" and acts of terror, such as those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Greater wars have been fought over lesser offenses that what the Tamils are going through in Sri Lanka; by definition, a battle for survival is laced with desperation; and, morality "ossified," no, unfortunately, it's just the morality that occurs when fighting an enemy that has no morals or compassion.

Maya has an interesting message to go with the beats. Very few political songwriters have both. I do not full understand the Tamil struggle but realize that people will fight against injustice and oppression. It is part of the human condition.

HEY GUYS,
FROM WHERE ARE THESE THOUGHTS AND IDEAS ARE COMMING FROM, SHIFT YOUR ATTENTION THERE, IF YOU ARE SEEKING THE TRUTH THAT IS. OTHERWISE ON A SUPERFICIAL LEVEL LIFE IS JUST A PLAY. JUST RELAX AND ENJOY THE BEAT OR JUST BEAT IT.
P.S--UNCONDITIONAL LOVE TRANCENDS INTELLECTUALY JIBBERISH.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE TRANCENDS INTELLECTUALY JIBBERISH

You must be full of unconditional love.

Its also a little tricky to talk in absolutes about insurgency. Kshudiram who is a hero in the minds of nearly all Bengalies killed an american woman and her daughter who happened to be in a carriage similar to the magistrate of Bengal's. Binoy, Badal and Dinesh, also revered in Bengal, killed some random writers and police (mostly Indian) in addition to the IG Prison in their attack on Writer's building. Master-da, Surya Sen, who has an Indian stamp with his image on it, lead an army that was able take over Chittagong for several days, before his army was decimated by an overwhelming British force.

History is written by the victorious, my father always reminds me. I've had many arguments with him over the "evilness" of Nazism, that I've always lost. This is because he's been able to show (quite easily, may I add), that head to head, the British easily killed more than the Nazies did. Just in the famine of Bengal, around 3.5-3.8 million people died in the space of 1 year. That clearly overwhelms the Nazi record of 6 million in 4 years.

THAT WAS A PUN ...YOU NUMNUT