{"id":1039,"date":"2005-02-07T14:40:46","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T19:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=1039"},"modified":"2005-02-07T13:18:32","modified_gmt":"2005-02-07T18:18:32","slug":"steel_balls_and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/07\/steel_balls_and\/","title":{"rendered":"Steel balls and pots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Friday I wrote up my “review” of the M.I.A. concert<\/a> that I attended in Los Angeles, and tried to convey to my readers the curiosity I had over the fact that the talented Maya Arulpragasam has a link to a group<\/a> that possibly aids terrorists on her website. Whether or not said group was simply a legitimate aid organization delivering tsunami relief supplies or really something more sinister, in league with the LTTE, may have been answered on Monday as reported at Scotsman.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n

Port authorities found thousands of small steel balls hidden in water pots in a shipping container that consigned to the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation, the army reported.\n
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\nSri Lanka\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s Tamil Tiger rebels, who fought a two decade civil war against the government, are known for loading suicide bombs with metal balls to cause maximum damage.\n
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\nThe rebels control a large area in the ethnic Tamil-majority north and have authorised the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation to co-ordinate tsunami relief work there.\n
\n
\nThe military website said the balls \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153could be used for production of bombs or explosives.\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d\n
\n
\nThe report said the pots, believed to have been shipped from Britain, are being held for investigation.\n
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\nA spokesman for the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation said it would comment only after seeing the military\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u2122s report.<\/blockquote>\n\n

IF<\/u> this turns out to be true, to me this raises a bunch of interesting ethical dilemmas. First, can you blame an artist for supporting a group that seems to be assisting what the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group, if said artist has a father who is one of the rebels? Is she supporting the group and its practices or simply her father? Secondly, isn’t part of M.I.A.’s appeal that she has rebellious lyrics? Haven’t young people always been drawn to rebellious lyrics? Thirdly, how can you (if of a politically liberal persuasion) enjoy yourself at a concert knowing that the lyrics (and possibly your money) are in support of a group that employs child soldiers<\/a> and female suicide bombers? I understand that the Sri Lankan government is also complicit<\/a> but simply letting two wrongs balance each other out doesn’t seem right. I don’t really have answers to my questions but I did think it would make an interesting debate.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday I wrote up my “review” of the M.I.A. concert that I attended in Los Angeles, and tried to convey to my readers the curiosity I had over the fact that the talented Maya Arulpragasam has a link to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}