M.I.A.: 'How Can The West Turn People Away?'

Updated December 15, 20151:48 PM ET
Published December 15, 20152:04 AM ET
NPR STAFF

M.I.A.'s story is one about identity, and about constantly being on the move. She was born in London but spent her childhood in Sri Lanka, where she survived a fierce civil war. Her father fought alongside separatist rebels. That conflict, which would go on to last 25 years, ignited a mass migration of tens of thousands of Sri Lankans, not unlike what's unfolding across much of the Middle East and North Africa today.

"We attempted to leave about four or five times, and every time we'd get stopped," M.I.A. said in 2013. "And they would stop the bus and take all the men off the bus, and we never saw them again."

In the midst of today's debate about how to handle a surge of migrants, it's no surprise that M.I.A. would weigh in again, this time with "Borders." The video is visually stunning, featuring young men, clearly migrants, as they travel on land and by sea, and as they feverishly climb barbed-wire fences.

read more: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/15/459114242/m-i-a-how-can-the-west-turn-people-away?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151215&utm_campaign=youmusthearthis&utm_term=music