Inanna on the Run
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Jehovah issues warrant of arrest for his seditious granddaughter
When word got to Enlil, the Bible’s main Jehovah, about the “disobedience and sacrilege” that had been committed by Inanna, he was incandescent with rage. He sent word back to the Anunnaki pantheon on Earth that he was cutting short his Mars tour of duty and would be returning to Earth very soon.
Examining the satellite pictures the Igigi (Anunnaki who stayed in orbit) had provided him, he was horrified by the almost utter destruction of Nippur, his cult city in Sumer, and the defilement of the Ekur, his Temple-Abode. He gave the Anunnaki council the specific time he’d be touching down on the planet so that he would find them already assembled at Nippur.
Altogether, eight gods were in attendance at the crisis meeting at Nippur. Obviously absent were Marduk, who was still hovering around the South Pole; Nergal, who had aided and abetted Inanna in her orgy of carnage and destruction; Ningishzidda, who was busy lording it over in South America; and Inanna herself, who feared the inevitable retribution.
All the gods in attendance, including Nannar-Sin, Inanna’s own father, were unanimous that Inanna deserved some form of punishment both for treason and for her battery of atrocities. Even the long-suffering Enki said she had gone too far. Standing up, Enki read out the warnings Marduk had sounded about an Inanna left to her own devices and blamed Enlil for having been too tolerant of her transgressions since days immemorial.
The proposed retributive options were weighed one by one and finally all the eight gods, including Enlil, decided that Agade, Inanna’s new base, should be wiped off the face of the Earth, whilst all other cities and principal farmlands should be spared. Before acting, Enlil issued a warrant of arrest for Inanna so she should stand trial. But the moment Inanna received the news of the hot soup into which she had landed herself, she immediately departed Agade and returned to Uruk, her longstanding cult city.
Says a famous text known as The Curse of Agade: “The Word of Ekur (Enlil’s decree) was upon Agade like a deathly silence. Agade was all atremble. It's Ulmash Temple (Inanna’s magnificent residence) was in terror: she who lived there left the city. The maiden forsook her chamber: Holy Inanna forsook her shrine in Agade.”
Wroth that Inanna had slipped through their fingers, Enlil’s sheriffs took out their frustration on the Ulmash, which they razed to the ground. They managed to catch up with Inanna, however, at the Eanna in Uruk, which she had just set about renovating after virtually tearing it down the last time around. It was not that they took her unawares: it was simply a stand of defiance. When the sheriffs arrived, they roughed her up, treating her like a nobody, a gesture of which she felt affronted. “Their unwashed hands they put on me,” she lamented in one of her later reminisces.
The sheriffs, however, made a terrible mistake. To accord her some dignity being a prominent goddess, they let her pilot herself in a flying saucer whilst they escorted her in a fighter plane to a detention centre in Nippur. “Me, from my temple, they caused to fly. A Queen am I whom, from my city, like a bird they caused to fly.”
Now, Inanna was the Anunnaki’s best aeronaut after Utu-Shamash. If Utu was the Lewis Hamilton of airspace, Inanna was the Sebastian Vettel. Only seconds after she took off, her flying saucer practically disappeared into thin air. It was like magic but it was simply her extraordinary aviational skills on parade.
NINURTA TRUSTED TO LEAD CHARGE AGAINST INANNA
With Inanna on the run and given that Sumer was Enlilite territory, Enlil decided to appoint a god with strong warrior credentials to rule it overall and bring about sustained order and stability. This was Ninurta, the famed God of War. Now, Ninurta was at one time given overall charge of Sumer but he did not enthusiastically embrace that responsibility as he was irate that his younger brother Nannar-Sin had been given authority over the Sinai Peninsula, which harbouring the all-important spaceport was the Anunnaki’s most strategically significant place on the planet.
That made Sin more powerful than him in the greater scheme of things. As such, Ninurta opted to spend a great deal more time out of Sumer than inside it. In fact, the reason Sumer was in such turmoil was because Ninurta had deliberately taken a back seat and was a virtual spectator.
Now Enlil desperately wanted him back and Ninurta consented to the offer. He so assented because he wanted to demonstrate, just as he did during the Third Pyramid War, that he was the mightiest and most indispensable Enlilite. “In days not five, in days not ten, the crown band of Lordship, the tiara of Kingship, the throne given to the rulership, to Ninurta’s temple brought over,” says The Curse of Agade.
But who would be Ninurta’s foot soldiers, his “instrument of divine wrath?” The most proficient warriors of the day were of course Nergal’s Gutians, who lived in Kutha, also known as Gutium, across the Zagros Mountains northeast of Sumer. The Gutians were by Enlil’s executive fiat ordered to fight under Ninurta but as paid mercenaries in the charge for Agade, which had been designated for total destruction. Since there was a reward to be gained, the Gutians said they were game, that they were raring to go. In any case, they could not defy Enlil, who was the God of Earth at least for as long as the sun rose in the constellation of Taurus.
Before the siege got underway, the Anunnaki high command moved to salvage what they could from Agade both literally and figuratively. Utu-Shamash “carried off its Eloquence”, it’s broadcasting infrastructure, and Enki, who was the God of Knowledge, “withdrew its wisdom,” that is, he closed down his secret society educational outreach known as the Brotherhood of the Snake and ordered the Easu’s (his teachers) to evacuate from the city.
Note that the assault on Agade was not instantaneous. Enki had insisted that Agade’s citizens who still were loyal to Inanna and Naram-Sin be given notice of at least seven years to reconsider, wind up their affairs, and relocate to other cities. You will be aware that the Anunnaki did not see the passage of time in the way humans did: to them, seven years in fact amounted to about a week.
This grace period also extended to Inanna herself: if she were to come to her senses, humble herself, surrender herself to Enlil’s tribunal, be tried, and accordingly sentenced, the curse over Agade would be lifted, the city would be spared, and tens of thousands of lives would be preserved from mortal harm.
JEHOVAH PARRIES NARAM-SIN PEACE FEELER
Meanwhile, Naram-Sin, who had been left to his own devices by the vanished Inanna, was worried sick despite putting a brave face on his fate. "The kingship of Agade is prostrated, its future extremely unhappy,” he mused before his loyalists. He was in dire straits and was at a loss as to what he should do. At long last, he managed to get in touch with Inanna through an oracular priest. Ninurta had said this to him on behalf of Enlil: “O Naram-Sin, this is our word: this army ranged against you, the Gutians, is invincible … Bind your weapons, in a corner place them! And you will be safe.” So the question Naram-Sin posed to Inanna through the oracle was this: should he simply give up and surrender as per Ninurta’s urging?
The answer came through a vision as he lay in a trance at the shrine of the oracle. “Then Naram-Sin had a vision, a communication from his goddess Inanna. He kept it to himself, put it not in speech, spoke with nobody about it.” The communication from Inanna was later confirmed by an instruction from her using a trusted intermediary. Inanna encouraged Naram-Sin to soldier on, to fight to the death so as to preserve both his and her honour. In the end, Inanna told her, the forces of light – she and he – would triumph against the forces of darkness – Ninurta and the rest of the Anunnaki with the exception of Nergal.
Thus emboldened, Naram-Sin informed Ninurta that he was going to fight: there would be no retreat, no surrender. Shortly after serving this notice, Naram-Sin decided to mount a pre-emptive offense against the Gutians before they came anywhere near Agade. In the first year, he dispatched 180,000 troops in the direction of Gutium. In the second year, he staked a further 120,000. In the third year, he sent out 60,000. That is a total of 360,000 in three years. None of his soldier returned. Of course some of them in all probability defected to the enemy ranks but those who held their ground were destroyed by what Naram-Sin described as a “Floodwind Weapon”, which was a chemical weapon of some sort.
Now, 360,000 was a significant figure in Sumerian numerology. 3600 years was how long it took for Nibiru to make one complete revolution around the Sun and 360 degrees was the size of a circle. To Naram-Sin, the message was loud and clear: he just could not beat Ninurta. Accordingly, in the fourth year, he approached Enki with cap in hand and besought him to prevail over Enlil to call a halt to the impending march on Agade. Enki did likewise but Enlil said he could not do that without Inanna showing contrition for her treasonous act. For as long as she remained defiant, Agade was destined for destruction come rain or shine.
Indeed, not long after Enki’s meeting with Enlil, Ninurta sent word to Naram-Sin that it was in his interest to voluntarily disarm as he was simply kicking against the goads. “In days to come,” Ninurta warned, “Enlil will summon perdition upon the Sons of Evil (Naram Sin and his army) and Akkad would have respite.” In other words, Enlil had already decided the fate of Agade. Naram-Sin was distraught. He made no more Kamikaze forays in the direction of the Gutians; instead, he patiently waited for them to invade, whereupon he would take on them with every fibre of his being. The guy really was made of sterner stuff.
GUTIANS DESTROY AGADE
Two more years passed and Enlil still had not issued the command to storm Agade. In the intervening period, Ninurta had been fortifying his cult city, Lagash, and militarily honing the skills of his lieutenants. Even when Inanna was at the height of her power, the one city she could not touch throughout all Sumer and Akkad was Lagash. Ninurta had seen to it that all the governors of the various districts of Lagash were militarily proficient. He wasn’t called Enlil’s “Foremost Warrior” for nothing.
One of Ninurta’s generals, known as Eannatum, who was overall governor of Lagash, was said to be a soldier of epic proportions and was even highlighted on stelas and various other Sumerian inscriptions. His military prowess was such that both Sargon and Naram-Sin fell flat in their efforts to mount a siege of Lagash. Eannatum’s “infantry of spearmen, protected by shield bearers, gave the army of Lagash a defence most solid and an attack most rapid and versatile,” comments a Sumerian scholar. Because of Eannatum’s glittering military credentials, along with his great looks, the raunchy Inanna was sexually drawn to him: she made him governor of Kish in addition to his governorship of Lagash.
Finally, in the seventh year after the curse on Agade was pronounced, Enlil gave the order for Ninurta and the Gutians to pounce on the ill-fated city-state. Enlil’s instructions to Ninurta were to “kill off Inanna’s Earthlings”. Agade was to be laid to waist, to be obliterated into untraceable oblivion.
Ninurta wasted no time in issuing the “surge” command to the dreaded Gutians, who swept down from the Zagros Mountains in their hordes. The great African warriors were in seven battalions, each led by a warrior chieftain. They descended on Akkad “in vast numbers, like locusts.”
On hearing that the Gutians were on their way, Naram-Sin developed cold feet and without formally notifying his generals simply went into hiding. Then each of his generals, who like their Gutian counterparts were seven in number, declared himself King, and the result was confusion as to who exactly held the reins as captured in the Sumerian King List in this statement: “Who was king? Who was not king? Was Irgigi king? Was Nanum king? Was Imi king? Was Elulu king?"
In the face of such uncertainty, the Agade warriors were not sure as to whose command to heed. Inevitably, the Gutians had a field day. “Nothing escaped their arm. He who slept on the roof died on the roof. He who slept inside the house was not brought to burial … Heads were crushed, mouths were crushed … The blood of the treacherous flowed over the blood of the faithful." Clearly, it was not only conventional weapons that were responsible for this carnage. Agade’s destruction was total: it was never rebuilt or resettled but remained desolate forever. Indeed to date, its exact location has never been found. When Enlil said Agade should be wiped off the face of the Earth, he wasn’t joking at all.
The Gutians not only destroyed Agade but looted it before razing it to the ground. Having made a statement of their fearsome reputation, their seizure of the whole of Sumer and Akkad was a walk in the park. As for the fate of Naram-Sin, his earthly chapter closed when Enlil’s agents planted a scorpion that bit him circa 2260 BC. With the destruction of Agade and the death of Naram-Sin, the era of Inanna-Ishtar was over but not quite…
FUGITIVE ISHTAR JOINS FORCES WITH REPTILIANS
Where did Inanna vanish to after outsmarting Enlil’s airborne sheriffs? She returned to her legally allotted domain, the Indus Valley, also known as the Third Region. There, her reputation was intact: she was still revered and even worshipped as Mahabharata, meaning “Goddess of Love”. She was also known as Indra. Both Mahabharata and Indra were once the ancient names of India. Inanna’s most devout followers in the Indus Valley were the Bharatas, a Vhedic Aryan group. Excavations done in India at the ancient sites of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro indeed reveal that the peoples of these regions of the Indus Valley worshipped a nude, bare-breasted goddess.
The fact that Inanna flaunted her sexuality without the merest inhibition was one factor that served to endear her to her subjects there, and the reason why they too showed little or no sexual restraint. But beyond and above that, it was the quality of life they enjoyed that made them receive her as a super-star goddess. Says one source on this subject: “A civilisation in the Indus Valley rivalled those known in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
These cities (Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) demonstrated an exceptional level of civic planning and amenities. The houses were furnished with brick-built bathrooms and many had toilets. Waste water from these was led into well-built brick sewers that ran along the centre of the streets, covered with bricks or stone slabs. Cisterns and wells finely constructed of wedge-shaped bricks held public supplies of drinking water. Mohenjo Daro also boasted a Great Bath on the high mound (citadel) overlooking the residential area of the city. Built of layers of carefully fitted bricks, gypsum mortar and waterproof bitumen, this basin is generally thought to have been used for ritual purification.”
Of course like every caste system, the Indus Valley did have its share of squalid makeshift dwellings, a careless intermingling of residential and industrial activity, but the superior caste enjoyed a splendid standard of living and that was what mattered the most. When Inanna arrived at Mohenjo Daro, her headquarters, she wasted no time in seeking a new race of allies knowing that she was all alone now and the Anunnaki pantheon were almost wholly ranged against her. Her new allies were a sophisticated race of Reptilians that had been living in a subterranean world in the bowels of the Earth.
In earlier times, Reptilians had gone to war many a time with alien humanoids like the Anunnaki and following the use by the humanoids of a particle beam weapon that resulted in a 200-year-old severe winter had found a new haven under the surface of the Earth. It were these Reptilians, who were indigenous to Earth and were in fact the first civilisation to inhabit this planet, who Inanna courted. Inanna wanted them to aid her in militarily defeating her own race, the Anunnaki. She would then be the Empress of Earth and accord Reptilians special privilege, such as emerging from their underground world to found their own colonies on the surface.
The Earth-based Reptilians were no pushovers: they had with the assistance of their powerful cousins from the Draco star system colonised seven celestial bodies in the Solar System, namely the Moon, Mars, Venus and 4 moons of Jupiter and Saturn. At the time Inanna made overtures to them, however, they had long lost Mars and the Moon. With the Reptilians having acceded to Inanna’s pitch, a globalwide showdown was looming between two of the most powerful forces on Earth. Would the Iron Lady bounce back as Earth’s sovereign?
NEXT WEEK: HELL UP IN THE THIRD REGION
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.