Revisiting M.I.A.: No Easy Answers
Originally published October 24, 2023. Updated and expanded January 16, 2026.
In 2009, I wrote a grad school paper about M.I.A. at about the same time that the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka was being swiftly and brutally ended by the Rajapaksa regime. In the intervening years, I became embarrassed, even ashamed, by the position I took in the paper. I took it down, although I think it remained online in the journal it was originally published in. I’ve put it back online at Academia.edu. Rather than pretend I didn’t write it, I feel I should offer an explanation and an updated statement that explicitly breaks down why it doesn't represent my views today.
Why My Paper Is Wrong: An Analysis
I no longer agree with my stated position and I’d like to tell you why by addressing key parts of my paper.
I instantly took to M.I.A.’s music, which incorporates as many far-flung styles as possible from Bollywood disco to Brazilian baile to Jamaican dancehall and more. But her lyrics puzzled me -- sometimes they sounded like nonsense, sometimes they sounded like they were supposed to be politically charged. But I didn’t hear a cohesive agenda or message, beyond, “this is underground, yo!” I knew she was making a lot of references to the Sri Lankan civil conflict, but I couldn’t tell whether her references told a story or not.
Did I ask my relatives, friends, or journalists or academics with a Tamil background or specific experience if her references told a cohesive story? Yes, I did, but I think today that I could have gone further in my review process to get more perspectives. It's possible there was a narrative that could have emerged through more perspectives, particularly from refugees specifically rather than immigrants. They are distinct perspectives, and at the time, I don't think my research was adequate to understand M.I.A.’s Tamil refugee perspective separate from my own Sri Lankan Singalese immigrant perspective.
M.I.A. has proudly positioned herself in numerous media interviews as an artist motivated by her background as a refugee of Sri Lanka’s decades-old civil conflict. In her music and associated imagery, M.I.A. drops references to her life story, political ties, and other minority stories to straddle a hybridized cultural and political identity that subverts and rejects mainstream Western narratives of gender and politics. She’s forged a complicated identity for herself as both a cross-cultural pop musician and political spokesperson for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, and she has explicitly acknowledged her power to educate people about the conflict.
Mostly true, but saying that “she forged a complicated identity for herself” reduces the reality that the complexity of that identity was something she was born into. She has been the primary author of her public persona but in no way the only one.
Genocide is defined by the UN as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” There are significant numbers of Tamils living in Sri Lanka in state-controlled areas without danger. Colombo, the largest city in Sri Lanka, is populated by every ethnic group in the country. Daily life is peaceful and involves much mixing between the groups. In a response to M.I.A.’s interview, Dr. Palitha Kohona, Foreign Secretary for the government of Sri Lanka, notes, “In Sri Lanka, fifty-four percent or more of the Tamil population does not live in the areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers. They live in the south, in and around Colombo, [in areas] under government control.” At this time, the majority of Tamils who were initially part of the LTTE are now participating in building a political process in the East and the North with the Sri Lankan government, belying the claim of widespread discord between the two ethnic groups. The Mackenzie Institute in Toronto which studies political instability and terrorism writes, “Genocide is not happening in Sri Lanka…. Anybody who takes the charge seriously betrays a highly annoying ignorance about the state of affairs between Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).”
This is the context I provide to say that M.I.A. and the rest of the Tamil diaspora and population in Sri Lanka that was being killed were not justified in their use of the term.
In writing this piece, I returned to a more detailed review of the UN’s definition of genocide. Here is a longer excerpt:
The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.
Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”
It is this last sentence that cements that my 2009 argument is factually incorrect. The Sri Lankan government protested that it was not specifically targeting the Tamil community in the area, but instead focused on eliminating the threat posed by the LTTE.
Today, having had more direct experience of working with survivor groups affected by violence, including state-ordered violence as well as familial violence, I see how much pain we heap onto survivors by not listening to them. And how much more invisible violence we do by finding loopholes to avoid having to get involved.
As my own insight has grown, I see how irresponsible it would be to not enlarge definitions and let them grow in empathetic directions that build our capacity as an international community to address war crimes.
So what do we call this situation? I call it a futile tragedy of epic proportions. I don’t know if M.I.A. is aligned with the LTTE’s objectives, but I do know I am with her in wanting the world to protest the deaths of innocent people, Tamil and Sinhalese both. Sri Lanka is searching for a way to end the conflict permanently, but there is no easy solution here. Suspending hostilities means the LTTE can recover and keep spreading violence through suicide bombs and other terrorist means. Continuing the assault means that civilians in the war zone keep losing their lives. But a genocide? This is not a term to be taken lightly, overused or misapplied. I want the international community to know and care about what is happening in Sri Lanka, but not by framing it as something it is fundamentally not. Diluting the meaning of the word borders on an immoral act by diminishing the true genocides taking place, ones the world has already turned away from and populations who urgently need international intervention.
M.I.A. had a communications problem, and this section was trying to explain this. However, I hate that I say “diluting the word borders on being an immoral act.” This is so far from the case that I’m shocked I wrote it.
Do I think M.I.A. is a terrorist? I seriously doubt it. But I think she is irresponsible with her words through her passion for her people. I want M.I.A. to choose her words as carefully as her beats. Give up a little of that swagger in favor of a more nuanced and historically accurate representation of the Sri Lankan conflict.
The conclusion of my paper was that M.I.A. needed to be clear that she wasn’t glamorizing terrorism. I still agree with this. The paper describes a few of the main reasons why the LTTE was formally recognized as a terrorist group. At the same time, M.I.A. had a communications problem, and my paper tried to get at that. She was dismissed by many even after saying "I don't support terrorism and never have. As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee."
But as an advocate, does M.I.A. offer a clear and specific stance on non-violence, self-defense, and when killing is justified? Not that I have been able to find. Is that her responsibility? I think opinion is likely split, and I recognize that the perspective of a refugee versus an immigrant could be very different on this topic. But I would also argue that it comes with the territory of being an advocate.
My Take, Fifteen Years On
When an artist takes on the role of advocate, it is often because their artistic voice and vision have earned them the opportunity to speak out and represent a group of people.
For M.I.A., it has been a rough road to travel. Today, I believe that in 2009, she was on the right side of history, and I was on the wrong side of it. It’s not that hard to admit it now, but it has been hard for me to recognize it and to deal with the deep sense of guilt I feel about it.
Around 2006, I read King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild. At the time, I was struck by the fact that it included letters from abolitionists that sounded remarkably similar to modern voices. I was also comforted by that fact. It pains me — haunts me even — that I was not that type of voice in 2009.
Today, as the world continues on its erratic, violent orbit, I’m exhausted by the act of having to choose one’s words so carefully when people’s lives are at stake, and carrying a burden of proof when the proof is unmistakable and the “authorities” simply refuse to acknowledge it. When a small population exists in the first place, genocide is all the more accurate a term. M.I.A. was justified in her use of the term to protest the mass killings that took place. Her voice deserved and continues to deserve a global stage, and I sympathize with her fury at how journalists treated her throughout the years.
Here is the bare bones problem with censorship of freedom of expression: Without being able to learn about murder, murder cannot be controlled. Learning about mass murder requires descriptions of mass murder. Teaching empathy for victims of mass killings requires depictions of mass killings that unlock people’s imaginations.
In “Born Free,” a music video released in 2010, M.I.A. teaches empathy in her own artistic language. It was as powerful to me then as it is today. It was also censored due to violent content.
The truth is, I’ve felt the most sane, and clear about where I personally stand at a given moment in time, when I make my own art, and I feel freedom in being able to use language and imagery that expresses pain and anguish.
So I conclude this post with M.I.A.’s “Born Free” music video. It is so simple, so clear, so direct, that its existence speaks for itself. To me, it is a truly great work of art that sits alongside the most complicated or controversial, just waiting patiently to be seen and understood.
This video is age-restricted due to violent scenes and must be watched on YouTube.
