This Friday (February 3rd) come to my book launch and art opening in Philadelphia at Twelve Gates Gallery. The paintings in question will be mostly South Asia related, with the centerpiece being my series of watercolors of Jackie Kennedy’s visit to the Subcontinent. Dedicated CM readers will recognize this series instantly from my old but gold post I am a Horse. These paintings have never before been shown outside of the internet! And to top it all off, the opening will also mark the launch of my new book, The Little Book of Terror, published by Foxhead Books. The opening starts at 6:30 PM, and the paintings will remain up until February 25th. Farangi and I will both be present. Come one come all!

Taste the war paint on my tongue/as it’s dripping with my sweat/place my gaze in the futures path/seeing things that ain’t come yet

Many years ago, a different me was in a car driving down a highway I had travelled many hundreds of time to a destination I was intimate with, and from a base which was called home. I guess it was 2001-2? I was thinking, listening to My Morning Jacket (review of Circuital), on the car’s cd player that I must talk to farangi about this band. Must. This was the best of jam-band and this guy had a voice that I couldn’t quite believe. Plus, they were from Kentucky – a place that is well, legend to me.

watchin’ a stretch of road, miles of light explode/driftin’ off a thing i’d never done before

Plus, they seemed not only to be amazing musicians but also had a deft way with lyrics. I liked them.

Every one else in the car hated them.

Years passed and they released more records, which I purchased. Listened to them. They toured within reach of me. But I never saw them. Once, I remember trying to make a plan with farangi to watch them, but who knows. We didn’t.

A few nights ago, I saw them in Berlin. In a very intimate little venue in Kreuzberg. I saw Jim James channel his inner qawwal and dance as if the haal was on him. When they started “Outta my system” I was bouncing from the ceiling. Standing within arm’s reach of the band, the sheer weight of polished rocking inexorably lifted all weights on me.

Have you ever lost yourself at a rock concert?

But, here is the well thing. At one point Jim James puts a towel over his head and sings through “Gideon” and “Mahgeetah” and I am transposed immediately to the haal-singers in sufi circles in Lahore, where the act of veiling is precisely to note that the voice coming out is supernatural. James’ voice is supernatural.

Thanks, Berlin.

Oh, and after, the roadie tossed me the set-list. Guess a salt-and-peppered-bearded-brown guy bouncing all night elicits sympathies.

From the inbox, a great event in NYC, hosted by Brownstar Revolution:

THE BROWNSTAR REVOLUTION presents…UNIFICATION 2010

Featuring performances by:
DJ Rekha
The Kominas
Hari Kondabolu
Fair and Kind
Curated by: BROWNSTAR

11pm Saturday, August 14
Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street between East 4th Street and Astor Place), New York City
ONE NIGHT ONLY

Commencing at 11 pm on Saturday, August 14 (Pakistan’s Independence Day) and continuing into the early morning hours of August 15 (India’s Independence Day), UNIFICATION 2010 celebrates 63 years of independence and the voices of talented, socially conscious South Asian/American artists. With performances by DJ Rekha, The Kominas, Hari Kondabolu, Fair and Kind, and others, UNIFICATION 2010 will explore the politics of our motherlands, reveal the experiences of being brown outside of it, and question the tensions between us, while fostering a movement towards a more peaceful, unified South Asia. Proceeds from UNIFICATION 2010 will support South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

Advanced tickets $20 @ www.joespub.com
Same day tickets $25 @ the door

Co-sponsored by:
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
Indo-American Arts Council
Naan Sense Radio
PakUSonline
SALGA-NYC

If you are in NYC, you should go – say hi to the Kominas or, more appropriately, yell something obscene at them.

Stephen Merritt:

Tiny Tim was, like yourself, a song historian.

Well, he had a pick-up band who had not rehearsed at all, I think. And what he did was play three chord cycles over and over again, and sing on top of that. The songs from the entire 20th century and part of the 19th century – songs that happened to go over those chord progressions. And every 20 minutes or so, he would switch the chord progressions he was playing. So, sort of “CFGG”, then her would switch to “CGFF”. And the amalgamation of the songs in a pretty random order was eventually deeply, deeply moving. And everyone in the bar, the nightclub, was crying at some point. There were six people in the audience. And very few people working. So maybe the total number of people in the room, including onstage, was 12 or something. And all of them were crying at some point. Including Tiny Tim. I think he was just very sad that night.

Ok, this is like catnip to me, you know? I just cannot resist.

Taru Dalmia aka Delhi Sultanate transplanted from Germany to Hindoostan, lays them slow. I especially like Mental Slavery but ’tis not on youtube. Check it. [h/t Jahnavi P.]

Tanz-Orchester Petrescu: The Sheik of Araby, c. 1922

update: Via Kerim comes the Nazi propaganda version of the Sheikh of Araby.

My first cassette, paid for, was Iqbal Bano sings Faiz which was put out by Shalimar Recording. That summer, I think it was a summer, I was obsessed with Faiz’s Dast-i Saba (1952). That dog-eared, tea-stained, copy still sits on my shelf, with pages marked and poems underlined. In that collection is the poem Yaad (Memory) which I saw being performed by Iqbal Bano on PTV. And I rushed out to purchase Bano’s music.

In the desert of solitude, o love, quiver/the shades of your voice, your lips’ mirage/In the desert of solitude, underneath the dirt of distance/blossom the flowers and roses of your presence

Iqbal Bano’s voice, especially on the cassette version, gorgeously quivers when she begins the last stanza. Is kadar pyar se, ai jan-e jahan, rakha hai/dil ke rukhsar pe, is waqt, teri yaad ne hath (With such tenderness, o love, has placed/your memory, its hand on heart’s cheek). Pyaaaar – se. I love that soft elongation, imbued with longing, that word. And going into the hopeful last two verses, she picks up the tenor. You have to hear it.

You can see her give a live rendition here:

Another amazing rendition is from a live concert where she sang Faiz’s Hum Daikhain Gaiy.

Iqbal Bano came from a classically trained school (I believe the same as Begum Akhtar?) and was renowned not only for singing Faiz (which she did, a lot) but Persian ghazals of Hafiz and Bedil (very popular in Peshawer). If curious, you can peruse and buy at Amazon. Especially the Meri Pasand vol 1 or 2.

Iqbal Bano belonged to an elite group of Pakistani vocalists, Mehdi Hassan, Farida Khanum, Amanat Ali Khan, Ghulam Ali who were all contemporary to Noor Jahan (though, never reaching her heights). They kept the fine art of ghazal singing at the forefront of Pakistan’s cultural production throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. One hopes those oaks have sprung new branches.

That is some sharp work.

From his myspace page: “Taru Dalmia is a reggae and hip hop artist based in New Delhi India. He has performed at various poetry forums and live shows, representing the lyrical and cultural tradition of reggae dancehall and hip hop in India.”

[HT, SC]

The rhymes were flowing and beat was strong. And I had a big, huge, grin through the whole night. It was the first night of Hiphopistan. I skipped the panel – as each panel skipped, adds 10 weeks to my life span – and showed up in the middle of Kabir’s set. I got to meet Yogi B and Natchatra – what great, genuine, and nice guys. Che Malabar was superb – and his Postcards from Paradise was the highlight for me. Things were political, things were tight. At one point, the taste at the back of my mouth and the incessant beat in my left ear, and I was transported to another place, long ago, in East L.A. when I went to my first hiphop concert. Ice Cube, who began the set with Assalamalaikum, mfers. Respect. Tonight, I will take pictures, and update this post. I am just happy. Long Live Desi Hiphop!

update: We will talk soon about this. Until then, enjoy the pictures and, below the fold, a couple of videos in crappy youtube (I will put up nicer streaming verisons on the hiphopistan website):

and

Saira Banu weirds out the all-too precious ode to motherland by Manoj Kumar. All I know is that Pran and Prem Chopra are _both_ in it – the baddest bad men ever.

Don’t believe me? Check this clip from the same, sampled and tweaked by Dan The Automator Nakamura and DJ Shadow in Bombay the Hard Way.

Talk about cross-currents.

Feist with Broken Social Scene, The New Pornographers, The National and some other people.

Does Kanye love chapatis? Hell Yeah, he does.

I absolutely demand that you read Samantha Shapiro’s Hip-Hop Outlaw from NYT Magazine. It is such a great read with asides like “(The Fox report on the DJ Drama raid included a shot of a grave-looking police officer saying, “In this case we didn’t find drugs or weapons, but it’s not uncommon for us to find other contraband.”). Furthermore, I absolutely recommend Clipse‘s Hell Hath No Fury.

While we are on the subject, anyone catch SFJ’s riff on Arcade Fire in the NYer? He gets their live insanity right – their show we watched in Chicago kicked ass – and he points out that they own their distribution channels.

ps. I really wish NYer would use permalinks.

Toronota based desi band, Falak – who think therefore they resist – want you to know that at least one of the 9/11 hijackers was just a spurned lover. In their video for the song, Yadain II – Memories II – the band rocks, ‘how do I live after forgetting you?’ while the hijacker gets ready. The video, with the disclaimer ‘Based on Tragic Events’ is here.

What. the. hell. is. wrong. with. you. people? [via]

Brett Lee duets with Asha Bhosle in one of the more bizarre things I have seen in a while. I do commend Lee on his rolled R’s.

I have issues with authenticity. ¹ One of the best scenes in Terry Zwigoff’s brilliant Ghost World is the horrific date Seymour has at the local “blues bar” where the frat/club/blues band the Blueshammer gives a soul-crunching perfomance of “Pickin’ Cotton Blues”: I been pickin’ cotton all DAY LONG. “Aren’t they great?,” asks Seymour’s chirpy date.

I was reminded of this scene recently in a discussion or two about Long Summer Day – a track on the new album by the San Francisco duo Two Gallants. I am a huge fan of their first record and think of them quite highly. However, I admit that the first time I heard this new track, I was taken aback by the track – and their moxie. This wasn’t just a blues song but a plantation song. This wasn’t a cover – they merely used the title and a chorus line – but an original work. Can two skinny white kids from San Fran really write, “Well I went down to the polling place but the white man there just laughed in my face/said “Boy this ain’t no nigger’s race, you best get on your way/“Sir I believe I’ve got the right.”/He said “You ain’t got nothing if you ain’t white./And I thought I said get out of sight.” Well what was I to say?” and get away with it? I wondered. Judging from the conversation with my friends and reading the reaction on music sites … I guess not. The track’s reception is largely harsh and contentious:

“Borrowing Otherness” – damn, thats just mean. The Two Gallants’ reference to their own “pale skins” also seemed compellingly awry to me. Yes, the critiques do hinge on the fact that Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel are white kids from San Francisco because we are not really taking about white-from-black appropriations [that disqualifies all of rock, after all]. Eminem has, after all, built a world-wide following while “appropriating” and “borrowing otherness” along with plenty of N-bombs. And Jack White [heh] seems to have covered folk and blues standards through 4 discs with nary a peep from the Pitchfork defenders. My guess is that it isn’t their race or youth that has the critic’s ire – it is their class. And by “class” we can also mean “lefty, granola-crunching, san-fran hippies”. But, ah, you say – we can’t really talk about class in this country unless it is a stereotypical rags-to-riches story². Which is why we are picking on these pale-faces who can’t ever know about “a man as hardscrabble as Platt”. Surely not.

Funny thing is that when John Lomax first meets Moses ‘Clear Rock’ Platt at the Central Farm Texas Penitentiary in Sugarland, Texas, Clear Rock is engaged is some horrendous acts of cultural appropriation singing the songs of white folks from way back long:

There is a lot more that should be said about Clear Rock and maybe I will. You can, of course, go and read John Lomax’s wonderful narration of his trips in the early 1930s to collect these songs. As for the Two Gallants, I will see them in May when they visit Chicago and boo their hippie asses. In the meantime, what do you think, gentle readers? Should we rake Ra Da Punjabi Rapper over coals too?

1. and reality, but let’s leave that aside.
2. 50 ¢’s Get Rich or Die Trying is fast emerging as a pivotal text that I need to look at. Spike Lee’s Inside Man reinforced my gut on that.
3. Lomax, John A. The Adventures of a Ballad Hunter. New York, Hafner Publishing Company, 1971. p. 179.

My readers are such lovely people. They know that I am just goofing off under the pretense of being busy. So, they do not hesitate to ask of me what they want. Here is gentle reader, Jeff:

Well, Jeff, I am so hip that I know that all the kidz these days are on MySpace! And that’s where you will find PakMan and Jay Sean and Rishi Raj and tons of others. Just follow the links. The music itself is available easily enough through the internets [you should be hip enough to know how] or desitunez4u or desihitz or here etc. Of course the big name is Bohemia aka Ra Da Punjabi Rapper [might I add, of CM fame]. But the truth is that my readers are way hipper than I am and they will leave recommendations in the comments. So, discover and send us a note back on what you find worthwhile. Lastly, sorry about your workplace.

The next request comes from gentlest of all readers like thabet, nitin, & zack about this. I was going to have some fun with pointing out the archetype of warrior-weapon but I don’t have my joseph campbell handy. After all, mythic warriors from Beowulf to King Arthur to ‘Ali to Khalid b. Walid to Arjuna to Aragorn to Dick Cheney have all had a named weapon of [mass] destruction [quizman can supply the names of these glorious weapons in the comments, no?]. Now, just leave aside the delicious irony of Ghaznavi or Ghauri being ambassadors of culture, why would the Pakistani state want to name their missiles after them? Friends, all this and more is indeed covered in my dissertation. I beg of you all two more months on that request. And yes, Nitin, I need the next one to be named Qasim. I need it.

I was toying with the idea of doing a top 5 or so albums of 2005. Since, I, um, actually paid attention to music, this year [not dissertating, obviously]. Stuck in an office staring at the computer monitor for 8 hours a day – every day – does that to you. I also, happen to have some peculiar tastes and am a bit less forgiving to the popworld. So, in an effort to combat my snobbery, I turned to my partner-in-concert-going-crimes sven. Him with warm ebullience. Remarkably, he agreed to do a joint top 10 albums of 2005 with me -over IM and lunch. We co-wrote the list [belatedly, I realized we shoulda gone writeboard] and it appears on his site as well.

Of course, the best albums produced this year would be the efforts of my friends and colleagues. Ed Yazijian‘s Six Ways to Avoid The Evil Eye which had a limited 32 print run in a wholly customized fashion [ahem]. So, no, you cannot buy it, anywhere. Though, maybe I can persuade Ed to do an iTunes release. However, Paul Kerschen’s The Pacific Theater is available and demands your attention. Also, Scott Schaafsma and his crew Magnus have their second release Portable Sun available for your rockin’ pleasure.

Read on for the list.

	#10. Low РThe Great Destroyer The ever-melancholy Low hit 2005 early with a much darker album. A departure from previous work that bordered on lullaby tunes, Destroyer garnished the band a new group of fans that were easily put off by their prior efforts. As their tempo stepped up, so did their sales. With tracks like “Monkey,” “California,” and “Death of a Salesman,” we’re hoping that this album is a hint of what is to come from this band hailing from Minnesota.
	#9. Madonna – Confessions on a Dancefloor Yes, Sven is gay. It’s part of his DNA that he is shamelessly drawn to this woman [should we hold that against him? -sepoy]. This seamless album flows from the first track to the last with high energy beats. While Confessions flirt with our dancin’ feet, the lyrics provide depth which is scarce amongst most dance albums. “You’re not half of the man that you lied to be,” stands to be the best lyric amongst a sonic sea of insight. The only track that we would have retooled would have been the lyrics to “I Love New York.” After listening, we vowed to never visit again.
	#8. The Decemberists – Picaresque All hail the “Infanta!” [All also urge Colin to take some time off in 2006 -sepoy.] The Decemberists joined the list in 2005 with another album of melodic storytelling. Picaresque‘s songs covered topics from spy-crossed lovers, to the digestion of whales, and even athletic aspirations. A lot of people ask us, “Yo! Dude, why you gotta be all crushin’ over this indie band? You like some hipster or somethin’?” We usually just allow the CDs to speak for themselves. Eventually, they’ll understand (as we do) that Colin Meloy just writes wonderfully crafted and great offbeat songs. But, it’s only after careful examination of the lyrics that you feel like you’ve just read a great vintage novel.
	#7. Gorillaz – Demon Days We weren’t big fans of Gorillaz’s first album. And we didn’t pay much attention to it this time around either. Then, we realized that “O Green World” was something like pop perfection. And “El Manana”. And “Feel Good, Inc.” And Dangerdoom had MF Doom over. Heralding the beatzalicious The Mouse And The Mask – which couldave been on this list. We tell you!
	#6. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire The Elefant of this year, Stars’ third record is great pop. These canadians could stay a beloved local band, but their cheekiness elevates them over many a pretenders. This won’t save your soul but you can sing it out loud in your car to your heart’s content; Coldplay be damned. [And this album totally starts out with bestest quote everz, "When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire!" -sven]
	#5. Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene [Another canadian [super] band and one more coming. What’s up with that? -sepoy] We are big fans of You Forgot It In People and this sounds very little like that earlier record. That still doesn’t mean that it is not a damn fine record. Still, of everything on this list, this record is the one with the question mark in my head [not even gonna say anything about Sven's Madonna]. In years hence, will I reach for this over YFIIP? In related news, Lisa Feist had her own solo record come out. Check it out, if only for the single “Let It Die”.
	#4. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema Ah, the canadian super group [wait, or is that BSS? -sepoy]. The New Pornographers gather all of our favorite solo artists… eh… two of our favorite solo artists amongst some other well known musicians to form… THE SUPER INDIE GROUP BAND! Dah, dah, dah, dahhhhh! CMJ calls them “the best pop band alive,” and we have to agree. Twin Cinema, their 3rd release, continues their steady stream of catchy pop tunes. We dare you to listen to “The Bleeding Heart Show,” “The Jessica Numbers,” or “Falling Through Your Clothes” and not tap your toes! Go! Now! We totally double-dog-dare you! Go ahead. We’re waiting.
	#3. My Morning Jacket – Z Someone said that this was MMJ’s OK Computer. Damn, we wish we had said that. This is the record that blew our socks away this year. Totally unexpected. Their first album It Still Moves was equal parts CCR, LynrdSkynrd with a side of fried chicken. We lourves it. This, however, is where MMJ’s sound becomes their own. “Into the Woods” with the carnival beat is perhaps the song of the year [Yes, it starts out "kitten on fire, baby in blender. both sound sweet." How can we resist!?].
	#2. Sufjan Stevens – Come On Feel The Illinoise Besides pizza, there’s nothing more that Sven loves than a concept album. Put a theme to an album, and you got his dollar. The second of Sufjan’s 50 State project, Illinoise delivers the history, emotion, joy, and horror of the state that Sven and Sepoy currently live in. How could it not be up there on our list? In truth, we debated on making it number one, but then Sepoy was all like, “Dude! Amazon made it #1 on their list. We can’t be all like Amazon, dude.” Then Sven was all like, “Yeah. Tots [short for TOTALLY]! We can’t be all similar to the website… that we look at… every waking minute… of our spare time at work… while dreaming of all the stuff… that we can’t afford. Yeah. There’s just no way.” So, it ended up bein’ our #2, yo.
	#1. Andrew Bird – Mysterious Production of Eggs When we started to think about this list, we knew for sure that Andrew Bird would be on it. We would’ve never predicted that he would rise to the top. Sepoy has been a fan of Bird’s strings and horns since Squirrel Nut Zippers [Remember that swingers fad? Poor band got killed by it. I did just see that they have a Best of..]. Bird, a Chicagoan, went on his merry solo way and had a couple of fairly good albums. You should, for example, find his cover of “50 Pieces” off Thrills as well as “Fatal Flower Garden” off of Bowl of Fire [see, iTunesMusicStore is your friend]. However, while those records had sparks of brilliance, this is all golden. Bird toned down his flourishes and sang [don't forget he whistled alot, too! -sven] the happiest sad album you will ever listen to.

These would fall under the “SO CLOSE. BUT NO CIGAR. CAUSE OF THE SMOKING BAN ‘N JUNK” category:

Josh Rouse – Nashville

Josh is Sven’s new crush. While Ryan Adam’s is coming out with four albums in a year [one was a double disc], Josh put out a quality CD that pleased most critics. And more importantly, it pleased us. THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE YOU WILL READ ABOUT!

Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures

Rogue Wave avoided the sophomore slump with Vultures. “Love’s Lost Guarantee” is guaranteed to tug at your heart strings as you throw back that bottle of Tequila another Thursday in a row. Even worse, while watching The O.C. on mute.

The Like – Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking

Guilty pleasure of the year. There is no need for this made-up band of hot daughters of record execs and producers from LA to exist. But, it does and the record is singalongy good. And, they hot. You know?

Beck – Guero

This album is like the best of… Beck. Some great tunes and def. one to get turned up to 11. But, let’s wait for the next one, shall we?

Kanye – Late Registration

We live in Chicago. We habitat on the South Side. If we didn’t have him somewhere in this post, he would like send his Gap clones in sweater vests to beat us up-n-stuff.

p.s.: Some other recommendations: The National’s Alligator is the rich man’s Tindersticks. And the lyrics are KILLER. Do check this band from Ohio. Also, Spoon’s Gimme Fiction, Silver Jews’ Tanglewood Numbers, OK Go’s Oh No.

Saw Arcade Fire at the Riviera last night with sven and rajeev. What an amazing show – def. one for my best of list. They play like maniacs and behave like ones too – rocking out in their band gear. So darn cute.

I must admit that after keeping them in heavy rotation for most of nov thru feb period, I had stopped listening to them. Also, the orchestrations were starting to sound a tad precious [same thing happened to me w/ regards to Decemberists except it was Colin's voice in that case]. So, while I wanted to see them, I wasn’t as excited as I could have been. Holy Smoke! they rocked my doubts away.

If the Arcade Fire come anywhere near your neck of the woods, GO SEE THEM.

updated: An actual review of the show from the Onion’s blog.

(written by dacoit)
The British-Sri Lankan singer/toaster/artist/producer M.I.A. has been anything but missing in action lately, blowin’ up the (cyber)spot on a worldwide(web) scale for the last few months and garnering mention in the US, Britain and Canada (though she is nowhere to be found in the press outside of Europe or North America as yet). M.I.A.’s anti-establishment quasi-activist sonic radicalism combines an old school UK punk aesthetic with genres ranging from the established (dancehall, hip hop, drum & bass) to the emergent (electroclash, mash-up, Brazilian baile funk).

This is flashy, trashy, funky and junky candy culture – but if M.I.A.’s music were candy it would be atomic fireballs (sugary sweet, brightly colored and cheap as dirt, but mad spicy to the point of being a little dangerous and unpalatable to the squeamish). Aesthetic judgments of her music’s quality or lack thereof have consumed several pots of ink and countless kilometers of bandwidth in blogland, the mainstream press, graying liberal rags , and more recently established arbiters of taste (and again). My primary interest is not in airing my own opinions of the music here (for the record, I find the idea of M.I.A. extremely compelling – both in terms of the styles she puts together and the politics – but the music itself has yet to grab me).

Aside from pronouncements on whether her sound is derivative/original, good/bad, and so forth, much of the discourse on M.I.A. has been over the question of her politics (see, inter alia, Sepia). Many have voiced principled objections to purchasing recordings or attending performances based on her alleged support of the Tamil Eelam movement and specifically the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant Sri Lankan ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighter’ organization (depending on how one chooses to narrate the situation) seeking autonomy for the ethnic Tamil regions in the northeast of the island nation. Indeed, M.I.A. – Maya Arulpragasam – is the daughter of Arul Pragasam (his nickname ‘Arular’ is the title of her album), a major figure in the LTTE and the radical Tamil nationalist student organization EROS that preceded the Tigers. She never exactly declares explicit allegiance to the projects and methods of the LTTE, either in the text of her lyrics or any of her numerous interviews, but the iconography she employs on stage and on her website incorporates the loaded symbolism of mighty tigers and various guerrilla-style implements of destruction, and she is not shy to refer to her father as a ‘freedom fighter’ in her lyrics (though in one interview she called him ‘insane’).

Notwithstanding MTV’s ban on her video for suggesting “like PLO/we don’t surrend-o”, M.I.A.’s political orientation is far more complex than many have taken it to be. As Robert Christgau points out, the only unambiguous message on her album is that education is crucial. Apparently, however, the ‘fact’ that M.I.A. is a supporter of LTTE terrorism is so obvious that some on the left see her as being an all-too-perfect target of neocon fear-mongering. Why might so many be so willing to dismiss her as a supporter of terrorism, pure and simple? This is a question that requires us to consider both the contemporary meaning of terrorism, and how the Tigers fit into this.

These days, the invocation of ‘terrorism’ performs a major political function in much of the world. The term is increasingly used as a blanket condemnation of any type of political opposition to an internationally recognized nation-state that does not use exclusively electoral means to get their points across. This works on a rhetorical level as well as to legitimate ‘counter-insurgency’ clampdowns in the language of international law. Crying ‘terror’ is also a significant means by which national governments can obtain resources for consolidating their own authority. Raising the specter of terrorism thus becomes a continuous process of state governments attempting to portray insurgent groups voicing oppositional political positions (often quite legitimate ones) as ‘terrorists’ to attract abundant international counter-terrorism monetary and military support. The global mass media plays a central part in the process of defining this or that organization as terrorist, and the end result is that accusations get flying so fast and furious that the term ‘terrorism’ loses whatever precise meaning it might once have had, and complex political conflicts from Palestine to Philadelphia to the Philippines are reduced to a global conspiracy of evildoers.

The way the global scourge of terrorism is localized in the case of Sri Lanka provides the key to the role of the Tamil Tigers in this picture. Emerging out of a grave failure of the post-colonial Sri Lankan state to incorporate the large and historically marginalized Tamil population in the north and east of the island, major resistance movements begin to flare from the late 1970s onwards. The Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist movement initially is aided by the Indian government, with the crack RAW section of Indian intelligence training cadres of Eelam-ites in the Indian Himalayas from 1983. This alliance is short-lived, and India’s military support of the Sri Lankan government’s counter-insurgency measures against the LTTE (which by this point has become the dominant resistance group) results in the 1991 assassination of former Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi by Tiger cadres in Indian Tamil Nadu. Since this period, the LTTE, at the insistence of a Sri Lankan state increasingly given to Sinhala nationalism, has consistently been branded a terrorist organization internationally (they are listed as a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US State Department and similarly notified in India’s recently repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act). It is of little use to debate the merits of this designation – the LTTE tends to conduct business in an authoritarian and undemocractic manner and is notorious for eliminating voices competing to represent the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist position (especially, as one astute commentator points out, Tamil and non-Tamil voices seeking to raise the problematic of caste, class and gender justice outside of the Tamil nation framework). Also contributing to the case for the Tigers as terrorist organization is the involvement of child combatants and practice of suicide bombing (dispassionately portrayed in a recent film).

As with most scenarios where the appellation of terrorism is used to homogenize and demonize political opposition, posing the question as one of a legitimate Sri Lankan state against the terrorist Tigers obscures the serious issues of unjust distribution of political power and economic resources (including much-needed tsunami relief in the Tamil areas). I think that for the same reasons we need to take very seriously the conditions giving rise to radical militant Islamist positions such as that of al-Qaida, we also need to take seriously the situation of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. There is, for example, a relative lack of interest in this scenario on the part of the Indian left. This might have something to do with a tendency on the part of the Indian left to disregard the causes of groups that are not explicitly Dalit, Marxist or Muslim, hence the recent fascination with Nepalese Dalit Maoism and long-standing sympathy towards the plight of the Kashmiri Muslim peasantry (both of course legitimate causes), but relative silence on implicitly Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka or, earlier on, the persecution of Sikhs in the Panjab and insurgent movements in the northeast. (I think this last is an argument for another day, gentle Indian leftist readers).

M.I.A.’s clear sympathy to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils, the imageries employed in her vague leftist rhetoric and her family history makes it a natural that she would be called out as a supporter of terrorism in a media environment that is saturated with such accusations. Islam, of course, is consistently upheld as a central terrorist trait. This is not entirely another story, since M.I.A. puts some random Arabic on her album cover, reportedly ‘just random words she needed to find to represent Islam.’ This may be with regards to the fact that Muslims in M.I.A.’s native Britain are quickly becoming the most important underclass; the inclusion is also an indication of the extent to which the Islam has been envisioned as a global figure of ethical resistance (this notion goes back well into the era of European colonialism, and more recent manifestations have been discussed by Susan Buck-Morss in a major book Thinking Beyond Terror: Islamism and Political Theory on the Left, 2003). Whatever the case may be, this plays into an overall design on the part of M.I.A. (her record company XL supposedly cedes complete creative control to the artist) to effectively generate controversy by projecting her allegiance to whatever-means-necessary-type anti-imperialism.

I think there are a couple of different things that we can take away from the cultural phenomenon of M.I.A. and the quasi-politicized buzz that surrounds her. One point relates back to my desire to take seriously the question of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, and the second has to do with our old friend globalization.

As we do with numerous militant aspirants to political power broadly on the left, from the PLO to the Chavistas, I think we should take the Tamil Tigers’ methods of ‘negotiation’ as a politics of desparation rather than branding it ‘terrorism’ and leaving it at that, and focus on the problem of governance in plural post-colonial societies. In South Asia alone, the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi states have exhibited a crippling inability to develop political frameworks for addressing the concerns of marginalized segments of the population (see Sepoy on Baluchistan for an excellent case study from Pakistan). For all her cheap nintendo beats and vacuous posturing, M.I.A. does provide a narrative from the frontlines of disenfranchisement at the hands of an ethnic nationalist government (one supported by international capital and military force). If the most feasible means of self-empowerment for Sri Lankan Tamils is, as she suggests in her song ‘Sunshowers’, to go to work in a Nike sweatshop in order to support one’s family (and buy Reeboks) or to suicide bomb the well-armed opposition, then the Sri Lankan state needs to be seriously reconfigured (perhaps, as a multi-national state with power-sharing at the center; as AG Noorani argues, a similar scheme held great promise for India in the mid-40s, but was blocked by the insistence of the INC on a unified center).

A frequent result of the continuing conflict in Sri Lanka has been the emigration of countless Tamils (among others) to India, the UK, Thailand, Canada and so forth, funding the Tiger resistance with hard-earned rupees, pounds, dollars and bhats. The fact that insurgent subject positions are transnationally constituted is familiar terrain, and the Arulpragasam family’s peregrinations from Lanka to Lebanon (where Maya’s father trained with the PLO in the early 1980s) to London and back are a case in point. The centrality of new musical forms in the articulation of these positions, however, and the way they interact with global audiences is worth examining anew. The market appeal of M.I.A. resembles that of musics yoked to the cause of resistance to racial, ethnic or gender domination by content (punk and ‘two-tone’ from the UK like the Gang of Four or the Specials, hip hop from BDP to Talib Kweli) or genealogy (the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine is nephew to Kenyan anti-colonial nationalist Jomo Kenyatta). While her message is much more difficult to pin down than any of these artists’, she often advocates similar causes (‘Pull up the People’ is the most bland and obvious); but as she says elsewhere London, New York, Kingston and Brazil ought to be quieted down; long enough, hopefully, to comprehend the particular ways that global and local processes intersect to maintain conflicts and exclusions in Sri Lanka. It would be quite a shame if consumers of this music are to take its politics seriously enough to demand boycotts of M.I.A. for being an LTTE supporter, but obscure the cause of the problems in Sri Lanka by applying the chock-a-block ‘terrorism’ label.