Big words getting thrown around MIA.  It  gets really complicated when art and politics mix.  A good example of this is MIA, whose music I really love, and who supports the Tamil Tigers (her Dad was in the leadership).  I know pretty much nothing about this (here’s a good New York Times article–there’s a selection below) but I do know that a lot of people have strong opinions on both sides, and that neither group look like saints.  Honestly, I’m all for MIA doing this–and for people responding in turn.  The whole world knows about American politics–it’s time we learned about everybody else’s.

M.I.A. — who has been nominated for an Oscar for the song she co-wrote for the hit film “Slumdog Millionaire” — has branded herself through music videos and interviews as the voice of the country’s Tamil minority. In the video for her song “Bird Flu,” for instance, children dance in front of what looks like the rebels’ logo: a roaring tiger.

“Being the only Tamil in the Western media, I have a really great opportunity to sort of bring forward what’s going on in Sri Lanka,” she said in an interview on the PBS program “Tavis Smiley” last month. “There’s a genocide going on.”

But her political views rankle some people at a time when most Sri Lankans are clutching to the hope that the rebels, branded by the United States and European nations as a terrorist group, are on the verge of military defeat by government troops.