Any question answered...

It's a music video. Does it have to relate to her heritage? Do all UK artists have to make music videos of them waiting for the bus in the rain?

Her artistic output has always made reference to being a sort of "child of the world". She often remarks on her heritage and the mish-mash of cultural influences on her character which she wholly embraces.

As for the video, her work should be looked at and compared to that of other innovative/cutting edge video artists who aren't simply making promo/performance videos but stand alone works of art in their own right. I'm talking about Bjork, Radiohead, Sígur Rós, Arcade Fire, Kanye West etc... artists who you can rely on to try new and adventurous things with their videos.

For further reference, check out Romanek/Gavras/Glazer/Cunningham/Gondry et al

I think there's a short documentary about the making of the Bad Girls video where Maya explains that she saw videos on youtube of these Arabian guys ghost riding and other such stuff, thought it was cool and wanted to make a video that featured them. Simple as that really.

This is worth a whirl if you haven't seen it yet - M.I.A. - Born Free ( music video banned from youtube ) on Vimeo