Night of Tears
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER…
The philosophy of the SSS World, the Orion planet also known as the NEHK World where the overall monarch, the Queen, resided was that home was the domain of the female and the conquered worlds, a work posting, were the domain of the male. Females stayed on the home planet, administrating it – call this performing domestic chores – whilst males were always grinding away in the cosmic outposts in a bid to expand the empire and make it wealthier and hence further brighten its future prospects. The same ethos applied at a societal level: at the level of the household, females in general stayed home if they were not in the army or serving the Queen in some capacity and males worked. It was the same here on Earth until the last third of the 20th century.
In much of the 20th century, women stayed at home, cooking, doing chores, tending to the children. The responsibility of men was to ensure that the family was well-taken care of; so men had to find a way of earning a living on behalf of the family. This praxis was the same everywhere in the world, including Europe and the Americas. Women seldom worked.
Because of this symbiosis where husband and wife played complementary roles, marriages lasted and the world was socially much more orderly than it is today. Not anymore. The Illuminati frown upon stable marriages since they thrive on chaos rather than order. They accordingly threw a spanner in the works by introducing the Women Lib Movement. This was meant to gradually bring women on par with men in every field of human endeavour.
Since women also now worked and therefore sustained themselves economically, the result was that family life came apart at the seams. Women no longer were submissive to their spouses. Divorce and singleness on the part of women became the order of the day. Of course women say they are now “liberated”, which is true, but this has come at a price – rampant divorce rates, commonplace singleness, and children growing up in homes without a father and so not knowing what it entails to look after a wife or caring for a husband.
It is worse with daughters because seeing their own mothers change men constantly or periodically, that code of behavior becomes ingrained in their minds at a very early age. The mother automatically disqualifies herself as a role model and no longer has the moral high ground to ram sense in her daughter. In Asia and the Middle East, where societies have pretty much maintained the age-old tradition, marriages are the stablest in the world.
Another reason the Illuminati introduced the Women Lib Movement was to turn women into a cash cow. In the US, women have an economic impact of $3 trillion per annum. Of this figure, $426 billion goes to beauty products alone. This has been possible only because women have been elevated socio-economically to be on par with men. But the effect on the stability of the home has been disastrous. In Belgium, the divorce rate is 71 percent. In the US, it is 53 percent. Botswana averages about 1000 divorce cases a year out of a population of only 2 million. It was never like that in the 60s and 70s.
QUEEN REINS THROUGH KINGS
We did mention some time back that in the worlds the NEHK armies of the SSS World had conquered, they were referred to as the ALLA-AN, ARRA-AN, ARI-AN, or AYA-AN (one of the Orion Queen’s multiple titles). All these forms of address meant “The Holy Ones of Heaven”. In antiquity, the term Heaven was not used in the context we use it today: it was a general reference to the Shagari Stars region which we now call the Orion Star system but which the Sumerians and Akkadians called URU-ANNA. The term Orion itself is derived from ORI-AN, another title of the Orion Queen. It is ARI-AN/ALLA-AN which gives us the words Aryan and Alien. From now on, we will refer to the people of Orion as the Arians.
The Arian armies, when they ventured out on cosmic conquest campaigns, fought under one banner. This banner was called the SSS-TAKH-A. Yes you are right: it is the source of … Swastika, the infamous emblem of Nazi Germany. If you recall from the Zeta Series and indeed from high school history, Adolf Hitler referred to the Germans as the Aryans, meaning “Master Race” (in truth, he was referring to blue-eyed/blonde-haired Germans). Historians have mistakenly taken this to mean the Nordic race in general. But that was not what Hitler had in mind.
The message he was trying to put across to the world was that Germans were a superior race in that the blood that coursed down in their veins was of Orion origin. In other words, he was saying the Germans were Reptilians of the Serpent line. Hitler knew a great deal more about who mankind really was than he’s given credit for (he had been in contact with the Aliens from the Aldebaran star system, which was part of the Orion Empire, see Zeta Series). Of course Hitler’s claim was not without a bit of hype given that every single Earthling does carry Arian genes in him or her.
The Arian generals, when they conquered or colonised a world, declared themselves kings but without a unilateral declaration of independence from the SSS World. They were so proud of their motherland the idea of seceding from it never crossed their minds. Thus in keeping with the maxim that a female’s place was in the home and a male’s place was out in the world, all the worlds that had been conquered in the 9th Region of the Shagari Stars by the SSS World were run by kings. As somebody fittingly put it, “To the King, the Queen was an ornament for the Court and a decoration for the Monarch to fawn over … her presence was purely perfunctory."
The Kings, however, were deluding themselves if they thought they wielded real power. Observes one cosmic historian: “In any Empire run by a 'secret power’ (in this case the Queen of Orion), figure-heads are always the loudest and the most highly visible. The empire is even given to believe that the issuance of commands comes solely from the figure-head. In truth, sometimes the figure-heads even believe that they really are issuing the royal commands. But it is the person who actually sees to the execution of those commands who truly holds the reins of power.”
Who were the people who ensured the Queen’s commands were carried out in the colonised worlds?
QUEEN ADMINSTERS THROUGH FEMALE REPRESENTATIVES
We did state in one of the earlier articles that the SSS World was ruled by seven queens, one of whom was Queen overall. It was this Queen who was the ultimate monarch not only of the SSS World but of the entire Shagari Stars (the Orion star system) and the Shagari Empire (the Orion Empire which comprised of the Shagari Stars and the conquered worlds beyond the Shagari Stars).
The Queen had an innumerable number of daughters who were borne on her behalf by her mother, the Queen Mother, using the surrogate method of reproduction as we said at some stage. These daughters were produced en masse with a view to aid in the administration of her vast, ever-expanding Shagari Empire. The Queen had chosen seven of her most trusted daughters who showed extraordinary abilities, incredible beauty, ruthless cunning and a cold-blooded willingness to execute her will, to be overseer of the planets on the seven stars of Orion.
The title of these seven daughters was AST-AST-UR, which meant “The First and Foremost of the Queen”. If you remember what we once related, one of the Queen’s titles was AST-AST-AN, meaning “Holder of the Heavenly Throne”. Now, AST-AST-UR was abbreviated as SST-UR. How does that come across? Sister! That, in short, is how the word sister came about. AST-AST-AN also gives us the English word “assistant”. In English, the meaning has been dumbed down to mean “helper” but originally it referred to the Orion Queen. AST-AST-AN-NA was in fact the official title of the famous Egyptian Queen Isis (her Greek name). It was a diminutive version of AST-AST-AN.
Today, it’s the stars of the Pleiades which are known as the “Seven Sisters” but in antiquity, the Seven Sisters were the seven stars of Orion. The two shoulder stars, the two stars of the lower skirt and the three Belt stars were originally symbolic of the “Seven SSS-T-URs”.
The Queen also had daughters, cousins, or nieces who were her main liaisons on the conquered or founded worlds in the greater Shagari Empire which were ruled by SSS kings. These were known as the AST-ANs. The AST-AN female administrators had a team of assistants drawn from the colonised world. These were known as the SSS-TI-M, meaning “Those who are at the Side of the SSS World Females”.
In time, SSS-TI-M came to refer not only to the assistant administrators themselves but the overall institutions they were part of. In English, this is … system! The same assistants were also called the SS-U, meaning “Those who belonged to the SSS World Females”. As individuals, they were known as SS-US. This is what gave rise to the name “Zeus”. Originally, it was not the title of a god: how it became so we will explain in due course.
The role of the Queen and her representatives in the entire empire has been summed up as follows:
“To the credit of the cleverness of the Queens, the Kings were absolutely convinced that as Monarchs (in the conquered worlds), they were the sole true power of the empire … Kings routinely issued orders intended for enforcement in the entire empire and it was the Queen and their female administrators who routinely altered or delayed the execution of the royal commands … It was also the Reptilian females who maintained direct contact with the rulers and peoples of the empire and it was they who administered to and maintained the channels of power … It was the Queens and their loyal female administrators who were the real Center of Power in the empire. And in every case, it was a female administrator who was responsible for the enforcement of Royal commands …
“The day to day duties of running the business and military affairs of the Worlds of the Reptilian Empire were always handled by the SSS-T Reptilian females. No detail, however minute, would go unscrutinised by the SSS-T female administrators. And no government was permitted to deviate in any way from the institutions set in place by the Reptilian Empire … The Queens became more visible, and became a greater part of the State ceremonies, that the people always relished. Minor programs were handed over to the Queen and her loyal female forces, but in the control of the Empire, the Kings would never relinquish their authority …”
NIGHT OF TEARS CONSOLIDATES EMPIRE
With the passage of time, however, later-generation Reptoid Kings of the conquered world grew too big for their boots. They decided to systematically undermine the Queen of the empire with a view to ultimately secede and become autonomous Kings. The Queen, who had a most pervasive Intelligence apparatus, got wind of the plot and decided to nip it in the bud. A story titled “The Night of Tears” relates how the Queen decided to wield the stick when a scheme on one planet in the 9th Sector to breakaway from the Orion Empire was detected. The Queen travelled to the planet in question and got rid of the King in a most subtle manner. The story is told as follows:
“The daily early morning meeting of the King's Royal staff was called to order. The affairs of the empire were always the first priority in the morning. Members of the Royal Staff were surprised when the Queen entered the chamber instead of the King. Soldiers of her Royal Elite Female-Guards followed close behind her. As the female soldiers lined the walls of the Royal Chamber, the Queen sat down, not in her chair, but in the King's chair! Several of the King's staff jumped to their feet and loudly protested her outrageous action.
When the Queen's Elite-Guard stepped forward, the males sat down and remained silent. The announcement was quick and simple: the King had been assassinated in the middle of the night. The Queen herself had barely managed to escape the assassins. Were it not for her loyal Elite-Guard, the Queen might not have survived the night. Though the male murderers were immediately killed, they could not be recognised, nor could the source of the assassination plot be ascertained. In order to keep order, in order to prevent riot and pandemonium, the Queen had immediately seized control.”
Next, the Queen took very drastic measures. All males were to be removed from positions of control and replaced with female commanders and administrators in the entire Orion Empire. The dismissed males, along with all the closest relations of the dead King, disappeared or died under very mysterious circumstances. On some other worlds, the crushed rebellion on the planet under discussion sent a wrong signal – that the Orion Empire was weakening, as a result of which copycat upheavals were attempted. Big mistake.
Invading forces from the central SSS World and from neighbouring loyal star systems flooded into the tumultuous worlds. The rebellions were crushed ruthlessly. The Orion Empire never waned but in fact waxed. “The deadly female Reptilian Warriors expanded the realm of the Queen's Empire more quickly and with greater devastation than the armies of the Kings ever had,” goes the story of the Night of Tears. “The empire expanded as never before and it leapt to the forefront as the most powerful of all of the Star Empires in the Ninth Sector.”
It would be millions of years before the Queen would allow males to be Kings again in her empire.
NEXT WEEK: ORION QUEEN CONQUERS A MIGHTY EMPIRE
Columns
THE KEY TO HAPPINESS
Speaking at a mental health breakfast seminar last week I emphasised to the HR managerial audience that you cannot yoga your way out of a toxic work culture. What I meant by that was that as HR practitioners we must avoid tending to look at the soft options to address mental health issues, distractions such as yoga and meditation. That’s like looking for your lost bunch of keys, then opening the front door with the spare under the mat. You’ve solved the immediate problem, but all the other keys are still missing. Don’t get me wrong; mindfulness practices, yoga exercise and taking time to smell the roses all have their place in mental wellness but it’s a bit like hacking away at the blight-ridden leaves of the tree instead of getting to the root cause of the problem.
Another point I stressed was that mental health at work shouldn’t be looked at from the individual lens – yet that’s what we do. We have counselling of employees, wellness webinars or talks but if you really want to sort out the mental health crisis that we face in our organisations you HAVE to view this more systemically and that means looking at the system and that starts with the leaders and managers.
Now. shining a light on management may not be welcomed by many. But leaders control the flow of work and set the goals and expectations that others need to live up to. Unrealistic expectations, excessive workloads and tight deadlines increase stress and force people to work longer hours … some of the things which contribute to poor mental health. Actually, we know from research exactly what contributes to a poor working environment – discrimination and inequality, excessive workloads, low job control and job insecurity – all of which pose a risk to mental health. The list goes on and is pretty exhaustive but here are the major ones: under-use of skills or being under-skilled for work; excessive workloads or work pace, understaffing; long, unsocial or inflexible hours; lack of control over job design or workload; organizational culture that enables negative behaviours; limited support from colleagues or authoritarian supervision; discrimination and exclusion; unclear job role; under- or over-promotion; job insecurity.
And to my point no amount of yoga is going to change that.
We can use the word ‘toxic’ to describe dysfunctional work environments and if our workplaces are toxic we have to look at the people who set the tone. Harder et al. (2014) define a toxic work environment as an environment that negatively impacts the viability of an organization. They specify: “It is reasonable to conclude that an organization can be considered toxic if it is ineffective as well as destructive to its employees”.
Micromanagement and/or failure to reward or recognize performance are the most obvious signs of toxic managers. These managers can be controlling, inflexible, rigid, close-minded, and lacking in self-awareness. And let’s face it managers like those I have just described are plentiful. Generally, however there is often a failure by higher management to address toxic leaders when they are considered to be high performing. This kind of situation can be one of the leading causes of unhappiness in teams. I have coached countless employees who talk about managers with bullying ways which everyone knows about, yet action is never taken. It’s problematic when we overlook unhealthy dynamics and behaviours because of high productivity or talent as it sends a clear message that the behaviour is acceptable and that others on the team will not be supported by leadership.
And how is the HR Manager viewed when they raise the unacceptable behaviour with the CEO – they are accused of not being a team player, looking for problems or failing to understand business dynamics and the need to get things done. Toxic management is a systemic problem caused when companies create cultures around high-performance and metrics vs. long-term, sustainable, healthy growth. In such instances the day-to-day dysfunction is often ignored for the sake of speed and output. While short-term gains are rewarded, executives fail to see the long-term impact of protecting a toxic, but high-performing, team or employee. Beyond this, managers promote unhealthy workplace behaviour when they recognize and reward high performers for going above and beyond, even when that means rewarding the road to burnout by praising a lack of professional boundaries (like working during their vacation and after hours).
The challenge for HR Managers is getting managers to be honest with themselves and their teams about the current work environment. Honesty is difficult, I’m afraid, especially with leaders who are overly sensitive, emotional, or cannot set healthy boundaries. But here’s the rub – no growth or change can occur if denial and defensiveness are used to protect egos. Being honest about these issues helps garner trust among employees, who already know the truth about what day-to-day dynamics are like at work. They will likely be grateful that cultural issues will finally be addressed. Conversely, if they aren’t addressed, retention failure is the cost of protecting egos of those in management.
Toxic workplace culture comes at a huge price: even before the Great Resignation, turnover related to toxic workplaces cost US employers almost $50 billion yearly! I wonder what it’s costing us here.
QUOTE
We can use the word ‘toxic’ to describe dysfunctional work environments and if our workplaces are toxic we have to look at the people who set the tone. Harder et al. (2014) define a toxic work environment as an environment that negatively impacts the viability of an organization. They specify: “It is reasonable to conclude that an organization can be considered toxic if it is ineffective as well as destructive to its employees”.
Columns
Heartache for Kelly Fisher
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o date, Princess Diana, General Atiku, had destroyed one marriage, come close to ruining another one in the offing, and now was poised to wreck yet another marriage that was already in the making. This was between Dodi Fayed and the American model Kelly Fisher.
If there was one common denominator about Diana and Dodi besides their having been born with a silver spoon in their mouths, General, it was that both were divorcees. Dodi’s matrimonial saga, however, was less problematic and acrimonious and lasted an infinitesimal 8 months. This was with yet another American model and film actress going by the name Susanne Gregard.
Dodi met Susanne in 1986, when she was only 26 years old. Like most glamourous women, she proved not to be that easy a catch and to readily incline her towards positively and expeditiously responding to his rather gallant advances, Dodi booked her as a model for the Fayed’s London mega store Harrods, where he had her travel every weekend by Concorde. They married at a rather private ceremony at Dodi’s Colorado residence in 1987 on New Year’s Day, without the blessings, bizarrely, of his all-powerful father. By September the same year, the marriage was, for reasons that were not publicised but likely due to the fact that his father had not sanctioned it, kaput.
It would take ten more years for Dodi to propose marriage to another woman, who happened to be Kelly Fisher this time around.
DODI HITCHES KELLY FISHER
Kelly and Dodi, General, met in Paris in July 1996, when Kelly was only 29 years old. In a sort of whirlwind romance, the duo fell in love, becoming a concretised item in December and formally getting engaged in February 1997.
Of course the relationship was not only about mutual love: the material element was a significant, if not vital, factor. Kelly was to give up her modelling job just so she could spend a lot more time with the new man in her life and for that she was to be handed out a compensatory reward amounting to $500,000. The engagement ring for one, which was a diamond and sapphire affair, set back Dodi in the order of $230,000. Once they had wedded, on August 9 that very year as per plan, they were to live in a $7 million 5-acre Malibu Beach mansion in California, which Dodi’s father had bought him for that and an entrepreneurial purpose. They were already even talking about embarking on making a family from the get-go: according to Kelly, Dodi wanted two boys at the very least.
Kelly naturally had the unambiguous blessings of her father-in-law as there was utterly nothing Dodi could do without the green light from the old man. When Mohamed Al Fayed was contemplating buying the Jonikal, the luxurious yacht, he invited Dodi and Kelly to inspect it too and hear their take on it.
If there was a tell-tale red flag about Dodi ab initio, General, it had to do with a $200,000 cheque he issued to Kelly as part payment of the pledged $500,000 and which was dishonoured by the bank. Throughout their 13-month-long romance, Dodi made good on only $60,000 of the promised sum. But love, as they say, General, is blind and Kelly did not care a jot about her beau’s financial indiscretions. It was enough that he was potentially a very wealthy man anyway being heir to his father’s humongous fortune.
KELLY CONSIGNED TO “BOAT CAGE”
In that summer of the year 1997, General, Dodi and Kelly were to while away quality time on the French Rivierra as well as the Jonikal after Paris. Then Dodi’s dad weighed in and put a damper on this prospect in a telephone call to Dodi on July 14. “Dodi said he was going to London and he’d be back and then we were going to San Tropez,” Kelly told the interviewer in a later TV programme. “That evening he didn’t call me and I finally got him on his portable phone. I said, ‘Dodi where are you?’ and he said he was in London. I said, ‘Ok, I’ll call you right back at your apartment’. He said, ‘No, no, don’t call me back’. So I said, ‘Dodi where are you?’ and he admitted he was in the south of France. His father had asked him to come down and not bring me, I know now.”
Since Dodi could no longer hide from Kelly and she on her part just could not desist from badgering him, he had no option but to dispatch a private Fayed jet to pick her up so that she join him forthwith in St. Tropez. This was on July 16.
Arriving in St. Tropez, Kelly, General, did not lodge at the Fayed’s seaside villa as was her expectation but was somewhat stashed in the Fayed’s maritime fleet, first in the Sakara, and later in the Cujo, which was moored only yards from the Fayed villa. It was in the Cujo Kelly spent the next two nights with Dodi. “She (Kelly) felt there was something strange going on as Dodi spent large parts of the day at the family’s villa, Castel St. Helene, but asked her to stay on the boat,” writes Martyn Gregory in The Diana Conspiracy Exposed. “Dodi was sleeping with Kelly at night and was courting Diana by day. His deception was assisted by Kelly Fisher’s modelling assignment on 18-20 July in Nice. The Fayed’s were happy to lend her the Cujo and its crew for three days to take her there.”
Dodi’s behaviour clearly was curious, General. “Dodi would say, ‘I’m going to the house and I’ll be back in half an hour’,” Kelly told Gregory. “And he’d come back three or four hours later. I was furious. I’m sitting on the boat, stuck. And he was having lunch with everyone. So he had me in my little boat cage, and I now know he was seducing Diana. So he had me, and then he would go and try and seduce her, and then he’d come back the next day and it would happen again. I was livid by this point, and I just didn’t understand what was going on. When he was with me, he was so wonderful. He said he loved me, and we talked to my mother, and we were talking about moving into the house in California.”
But as is typical of the rather romantically gullible tenderer sex, General, Kelly rationalised her man’s stratagems. “I just thought they maybe didn’t want a commoner around the Princess … Dodi kept leaving me behind with the excuse that the Princess didn’t like to meet new people.” During one of those nights, General, Dodi even had unprotected sexual relations with Kelly whilst cooing in her ear that, “I love you so much and I want you to have my baby.”
KELLY USHERED ONTO THE JONIKAL AT LONG LAST
On July 20, General, Diana returned to England and it was only then that Dodi allowed Kelly to come aboard the Jonikal. According to Debbie Gribble, who was the Jonikal’s chief stewardess, Kelly was kind of grumpy. “I had no idea at the time who she was, but I felt she acted very spoiled,” she says in Trevor Rees-Jones’ The Bodyguard’s Story. “I remember vividly that she snapped, ‘I want to eat right now. I don’t want a drink, I just want to eat now’. It was quite obvious that she was upset, angry or annoyed about something.”
Kelly’s irascible manner of course was understandable, General, given the games Dodi had been playing with her since she pitched up in St. Tropez. Granted, what happened to Kelly was very much antithetical to Dodi’s typically well-mannered nature, but the fact of the matter was that she simply was peripheral to the larger agenda, of which Dodi’s father was the one calling the shots.
On July 23, Dodi and Kelly flew to Paris, where they parted as Kelly had some engagements lined up in Los Angeles. Dodi promised to join her there on August 4 to celebrate with her her parents’ marriage anniversary. Dodi, however, General, did not make good on his promise: though he did candidly own up to the fact that he was at that point in time again with Diana, he also fibbed that he was not alone with her but was partying with her along with Elton John and George Michael. But in a August 6 phone call, he did undertake to Kelly that he would be joining her in LA in a few days’ time. In the event, anyway, General, Kelly continued to ready herself for her big day, which was slated for August 9 – until she saw “The Kiss”.
THE KISS THAT NEVER WAS
“The Kiss”, General, first featured in London’s Sunday Mirror on August 10 under that very headline. In truth, General, it was not a definitive, point-blank kiss: it was a fuzzy image of Diana and Dodi embracing on the Jonikal. A friend of Kelly faxed her the newspaper pictures in the middle of the night and Kelly was at once stunned and convulsed with rage.
But although Kelly was shocked, General, she was not exactly surprised as two or three days prior, British tabloids had already begun rhapsodising on a brewing love affair between Dodi and Diana. That day, Kelly had picked up a phone to demand an immediate explanation from her fiancé. “I started calling him in London because at this time I was expecting his arrival in a day. I called his private line, but there was no answer. So then I called the secretary and asked to speak to him she wouldn’t put me on. So Mohamed got on and in so many horrible words told me to never call back again. I said, ‘He’s my fiancé, what are you talking about?’ He hung up on me and I called back and the secretary said don’t ever call here again, your calls are no longer to be put through. It was so horrible.”
Kelly did at long last manage to reach Dodi but he was quick to protest that, “I can’t talk to you on the phone. I will talk to you in LA.” Perhaps Dodi, General, just at that stage was unable to muster sufficient Dutch courage to thrash out the matter with Kelly but a more credible reason he would not talk had to do with his father’s obsessive bugging of every communication device Dodi used and every inch of every property he owned. The following is what David Icke has to say on the subject in his iconic book The Biggest Secret:
“Ironically, Diana used to have Kensington Palace swept for listening devices and now she was in the clutches of a man for whom bugging was an obsession. The Al Fayed villa in San Tropez was bugged, as were all Fayed properties. Everything Diana said could be heard. Bob Loftus, the former Head of Security at Harrods, said that the bugging there was ‘a very extensive operation’ and was also always under the direction of Al Fayed. Henry Porter, the London Editor of the magazine Vanity Fair, had spent two years investigating Al Fayed and he said they came across his almost obsessive use of eavesdropping devices to tape telephone calls, bug rooms, and film people.”
Through mutual friends, General, Porter warned Diana about Al Fayed’s background and activities ‘because we thought this was quite dangerous for her for obvious reasons’ but Diana apparently felt she could handle it and although she knew Al Fayed could ‘sometimes be a rogue’, he was no threat to her, she thought. “He is rather more than a rogue and rather more often than ‘sometimes,” she apparently told friends. “I know he’s naughty, but that’s all.” The TV programme Dispatches said they had written evidence that Al Fayed bugged the Ritz Hotel and given his background and the deals that are hatched at the Ritz, it would be uncharacteristic if he did not. Kelly Fisher said that the whole time she was on Fayed property, she just assumed everything was bugged. It was known, she said, and Dodi had told her the bugging was so pervasive.
KELLY SUES, ALBEIT VAINLY SO
To his credit, General, Dodi was sufficiently concerned about what had transpired in St. Tropez to fly to LA and do his utmost to appease Kelly but Kelly simply was not interested as to her it was obvious enough that Diana was the new woman in his life.
On August 14, Kelly held a press conference in LA, where she announced that she was taking legal action against Dodi for breach of matrimonial contract. Her asking compensation price was £340,000. Of course the suit, General, lapsed automatically with the demise of Dodi in that Paris underpass on August 31, 1997.
Although Kelly did produce evidence of her engagement to Dodi in the form of a pricey and spectacular engagement ring, General, Mohamed Al Fayed was adamant that she never was engaged to his son and that she was no more than a gold digger.
But it is all water under the bridge now, General: Kelly is happily married to a pilot and the couple has a daughter. Her hubby may not be half as rich as Dodi potentially was but she is fully fulfilled anyway. Happiness, General, comes in all shades and does not necessarily stem from a colossal bank balance or other such trappings of affluence.
Pic Cap
THE SHORT-LIVED TRIANGLE: For about a month or so, Dodi Al Fayed juggled Princess Diana and American model Kelly Fisher, who sported Dodi’s engagement ring. Of course one of the two had to give and naturally it could not be Diana, who entered the lists in the eleventh hour but was the more precious by virtue of her royal pedigree and surpassing international stature.
NEXT WEEK: FURTHER BONDING BETWEEN DIANA AND DODI
Columns
EXTRAVAGANCE One of The Scourges in Society.
Extravagance in recent times has moved from being the practice of some rich and wealthy people of society in general and has regrettably, filtered to all levels of the society. Some of those who have the means are reckless and flaunt their wealth, and consequently, those of us who do not, borrow money to squander it in order to meet their families’ wants of luxuries and unnecessary items. Unfortunately this is a characteristic of human nature.
Adding to those feelings of inadequacy we have countless commercials to whet the consumer’s appetite/desire to buy whatever is advertised, and make him believe that if he does not have those products he will be unhappy, ineffective, worthless and out of tune with the fashion and trend of the times. This practice has reached a stage where many a bread winner resorts to taking loans (from cash loans or banks) with high rates of interest, putting himself in unnecessary debt to buy among other things, furniture, means of transport, dress, food and fancy accommodation, – just to win peoples’ admiration.
Islam and most religions discourage their followers towards wanton consumption. They encourage them to live a life of moderation and to dispense with luxury items so they will not be enslaved by them. Many people today blindly and irresponsibly abandon themselves to excesses and the squandering of wealth in order to ‘keep up with the Joneses’.
The Qur’aan makes it clear that allowing free rein to extravagance and exceeding the limits of moderation is an inherent characteristic in man. Allah says, “If Allah were to enlarge the provision for his servants, they would indeed transgress beyond all bounds.” [Holy Qur’aan 42: 27]
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “Observe the middle course whereby you will attain your objective (that is paradise).” – Moderation is the opposite of extravagance.
Every individual is meant to earn in a dignified manner and then spend in a very wise and careful manner. One should never try to impress upon others by living beyond one’s means. Extravagance is forbidden in Islam, Allah says, “Do not be extravagant; surely He does not love those who are extravagant!” [Holy Qur’aan 7: 31]
The Qur’aan regards wasteful buying of food, extravagant eating that sometimes leads to throwing away of leftovers as absolutely forbidden. Allah says, “Eat of the fruits in their season, but render the dues that are proper on the day that the harvest is gathered. And waste not by excess, for Allah loves not the wasters.” [Holy Qur’aan 6: 141]
Demonstrating wastefulness in dress, means of transport, furniture and any other thing is also forbidden. Allah says, “O children of Adam! Wear your apparel of adornment at every time and place of worship, and eat and drink but do not be extravagant; surely He does not love those who are extravagant!” [Holy Qur’aan 7: 31]
Yet extravagance and the squandering of wealth continue to grow in society, while there are many helpless and deprived peoples who have no food or shelter. Just look around you here in Botswana.
Have you noticed how people squander their wealth on ‘must have’ things like designer label clothes, fancy brand whiskey, fancy top of the range cars, fancy society parties or even costly weddings, just to make a statement? How can we prevent the squandering of such wealth?
How can one go on spending in a reckless manner possibly even on things that have been made forbidden while witnessing the suffering of fellow humans whereby thousands of people starve to death each year. Islam has not forbidden a person to acquire wealth, make it grow and make use of it. In fact Islam encourages one to do so. It is resorting to forbidden ways to acquiring and of squandering that wealth that Islam has clearly declared forbidden. On the Day of Judgment every individual will be asked about his wealth, where he obtained it and how he spent it.
In fact, those who do not have any conscience about their wasteful habits may one day be subjected to Allah’s punishment that may deprive them of such wealth overnight and impoverish them. Many a family has been brought to the brink of poverty after leading a life of affluence. Similarly, many nations have lived a life of extravagance and their people indulged in such excesses only to be later inflicted by trials and tribulations to such a point that they wished they would only have a little of what they used to possess!
With the festive season and the new year holidays having passed us, for many of us meant ‘one’ thing – spend, spend, spend. With the festivities and the celebrations over only then will the reality set in for many of us that we have overspent, deep in debt with nothing to show for it and that the following months are going to be challenging ones.
Therefore, we should not exceed the bounds when Almighty bestows His bounties upon us. Rather we should show gratefulness to Him by using His bestowments and favours in ways that prove our total obedience to Him and by observing moderation in spending. For this will be better for us in this life and the hereafter.