Harvard Humanitarian Of 2017 Rihanna is planning a visit Senegal on Friday to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron to promote children’s education. However, while her cause may be an excellent one, one group of Senegal religious leaders isn’t having it, denouncing the visit for a very odd reason.
According to a report from The Guardian, a group of about 30 Islamic associations called No To Freemasonry And Homosexuality are asking the government to cancel her visit because they say she is both promoting homosexuality and part of the Illuminati.
Cheikh Oumar Diagne, a spokesman for the group is quoted as saying, “Rihanna doesn’t hide it: she’s part of the Illuminati, a branch of Freemasons.” Apparently, this group has been reading years-old conspiracy theories; it was a trend some time ago to accuse stars of being members of the mythical secret society, an unusual quirk that some artists, like Jay-Z, leaned into but most outright denied. Eventually, the trend quieted down as people started to figure out that rich people don’t actually need a secret society or Faustian pacts to run the world.
Diagne further accused Rihanna of scheduling her Senegal visit with a Freemasons’ conference that was planned for the exact same dates as the education conference. How she was supposed to have attended both, he doesn’t say.
Meanwhile, The Global Partnership for Education is trying to raise $2 billion a year by 2020 for the education of the poorest, most vulnerable children in 65 countries, with a focus on girls’ education, as girls are the most vulnerable demographic to be passed by globally. Rihanna has been an advocate for girls’ education for some time, emphatically tweeting to world leaders to join the Global Partnership and help make a difference.
