Name? Robyn Rihanna Fenty
Westphalian identity? Barbadian
Age? 32
Why is she in the news? Last week, singer Rihanna decided to Talk That Talk in a tweet about the farmers’ protests in India. Indian Prime Minister Modi has been Unapologetic over the agriculture laws and even instructed Twitter to take down some accounts which were Rated R in his opinion.
Why do we care? A celebrity with 100+ million followers on Twitter gets Loud and tweets about the protests; leading to a reaction by the government of the largest democracy in the world condemning her tweets as ‘propaganda.’ It’s almost like the individual matters in international relations…
Why should you care? Because what Rihanna has tweeted is actually important. The Indian government asked Twitter to shut down poast about the protests including from journalists and activists for igniting violence. Twitter followed these requests as they are in line with the ban on President Trump’s account. On our How much should you care scale this gets a 6/10.
Who else cares? Aung San Suu Kyi because Rihanna also tweeted about the coup in Myanmar. In the comments of her Tweet, social justice warriors from all keyboards of the world called for Rihanna to speak out against other injustices: Uighurs, Philippines, Thailand and more. At the end of the day, Rihanna might not be able to advertise her makeup between all the suffering.
Any further comments? Greta Thunberg posted (now deleted) a toolkit for the protests not knowing that she accidentally supported the Vancouver-based organisation Poetic Justice Foundation, a pro-Khalistani group where Sikh separatists seeking to create a proposed state called Khalistan in the Punjab region. It is almost like tweeting your opinion on a matter requires understanding of the problem; an almost Trumpesque move from Greta… Creating awareness is important but international relations is a complex field which requires more than a link to an article and an elliptic sentence expressing discontent, especially with millions of followers.
