Abe Shields Space-Related Sites
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
General Abraham secures Jerusalem and Sinai spaceport, then marches on Egypt
In GENESIS 15:18, this is what we’re informed: “On that day, Yahweh contracted a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your seed, I give this land, from the stream of Egypt as far as the Great Stream, the stream Euphrates’.” I wonder how many Christians have read this passage and vividly grasped its implications.
To those who have not, thankfully we’re on hand to lend a hand. In the passage, Yahweh, the Anunnaki supremo Enlil, undertakes to Abraham, his chosen Shepherd-King for the forthcoming astrological Age of Aries, that he would give his offspring a huge swathe of land stretching from the stream of Egypt to the Great Stream known as the Euphrates. In case you are a newcomer to this series, the Stream of Egypt was the name of the Nile River in antiquity.
There are two curious aspects about Enlil’s promise to Abraham. First, why was Abraham rendered such a promise? What did he do to merit it? When you read the greater context of Genesis 15, you find yourself at a loss. The promise comes after Abraham performs a ritual in which he sacrifices a heifer, a goat, a ram, and a turtledove to Enlil, which Enlil acknowledges with a stove-hot “fiery torch”that consumes the sacrifices.
It is typical of the Genesis writers, when they want to fudge a matter, to obfuscate things so that the reader is left guessing. But the Sumerian chronicles, from which the Genesis writers researched, are more matter-of-fact. The land in question was promised to Abraham subject to his fulfilling a most momentous assignment – the conquest of northern Egypt.
That brings us to the second curious aspect about the promise. It is common knowledge that the river Nile is in Egypt. So why were Abraham’s people, the Hebrews or Hebraic Jews, promised a portion of territory that did not belong to them? Egypt was not a domain of Enlilites: it was a domain of Enkites. Enlil had no hegemonic jurisdiction over Egypt and Abraham was not an Egyptian at all: he was a Sumerian. So why did Enlil include the whole of Egypt east of the Nile River as part of his future bequest to Abraham and his descendents?
Once again, the Bible far from hits the nail squarely on the head. But the Sumerian accounts and researchers of Egyptian records are much more revealing. At the time of Abraham, northern Egypt was dominated by Hebrews of Indian origin known as the Hyksos. These were Enlil’s people. We have already related that the Hyksos were planted in northern Egypt by Enlil at a time when Abraham was Pope of India and was based in the part of that country known as Maturea. This was a long-term scheme by Enlil to occupy a part of Egypt (and ultimately possibly overrun it altogether) just as Enkites inhabited vast areas of Canaan and regions of Sumer such as Babylon and Eridu.
In 2048 BC, Marduk had with the guileful assistance of the Hittites seized Harran, a Hebrew stronghold, forcing the whole of Abraham’s family save for Nahor to depart the city. It was at this stage that Enlil decided on a counter-penetration of Egypt which should culminate in the annexation of northern Egypt by the Hyksos under the command of Abraham.
ABE WAS A MILITARY GENERAL
Meanwhile, Abraham was on a roll. Reading Genesis, one gets the impression that Abraham was no more than a phenomenally successful pastoral farmer. A clutch of bible-based movies that have been made over the years also loyally toe this biblical line. Sadly, it’s all disinformation, if not outright bollocks, which is very common in much of the Old Testament. Firstly, Abraham was not a farmland shepherd: he was a member of a highly influential royal and priestly family. Secondly, Abraham was not simply the leader of the Hebrew race: he was an accomplished military general.
Just like every male member of the British royal family has to do service in a branch of the armed forces, Abraham too was trained as a warrior from a very early age. We see this phenomenon even in African history. Sechele and Kgosidintsi, the foremost BaKwena princes, as well as Khama the Great and Linchwe I were all trained warriors and played active parts in wars. In AD 70, Flavius Titus, the Roman general who razed Jerusalem to the ground, was the heir to Roman emperor Vespasian.
According to the legendary Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Abraham was at the command of “318 officers under him, with unlimited manpower at his disposal”. These 318 officers were both his warriors and his personal security detail. Abraham lived n a garrison house and all his soldiers were not only trained by him, with the assistance of Ninurta’s Elamite elite troops, but were born in the garrison itself. The Sumerian records also say that Enlil equipped Abraham with “the best chariots, finest horses, 380 well-trained soldiers and weapons that could smite an army of ten thousand men in hours.”
Abraham’s troops were the most formidable of the day. They also were a numerable force. If, for argument’s sake, each of the 318 officers had 40 men under him, we’re talking of a 12,000-men-strong army. And like his father Terah, Abraham was very well-versed in astronomy and astrology.
Writes Josephus: “Berosus (the great ancient writer who was once a priest of Marduk) mentions our father Abram without naming him, when he says thus: ‘In the tenth generation after the Flood, there was among the Chaldeans a man righteous and great, and skilful in the celestial science’." Josephus also sets apart Abraham as an extremely wise man. He was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had …”
GENERAL ABE CONQUERS DAMASCUS
When Abraham departed Harran after Marduk was lured into taking the city by Ishkur-Adad, he was accompanied by his father Terah and his nephew Lot, the only son of his departed older brother Haran. At some stage after the death of Haran, Abraham had adopted Lot as his own son, a state of affairs the slanted Genesis authors skirted completely. Says Josephus: “Now Abram, having no son of his own, adopted Lot, his brother Haran's son, and his wife Sarai's brother.”
What that meant was that legally, Abraham was not childless before Isaac was born: he already had a heir in the person of Lot. But as they say, blood is thicker than water and so it was the Isaac factor that largely contributed to a parting of ways between Abraham and Lot, which story we will address at the appropriate time.
When Abraham set off from Harran, he was accompanied by his troops. Enlil’s immediate brief to him was to rush and secure Tilmun, the spaceport, and Jerusalem, the Mission Control Centre. These two space-related sites were potentially vulnerable to capture by Nabu’s people given that the Canaanites were rallying en masse to Nabu’s banner.
Writes Zechariah Sitchin: “Starting in 2047 BC, the sacred Fourth Region (the Sinai Peninsula, the location of Tilmun) became a target and a pawn in the Enlilite struggle with Marduk and Nabu … The ancient sources indicate that from the safety of the sacred region Nabu ventured to the lands and cities along the Mediterranean coast, even to some Mediterranean islands, spreading everywhere the message of Marduk’s coming supremacy.”
After travelling for about 1000 km, Abraham reached Damascus, in today’s Syria, and noting that it was very strategically located, he decided to take it. Exactly how this conquest panned out is not related in the Bible nor in the familiar Sumerian records. It is Josephus who enlightens us in this regard. This is what he writes, quoting a certain historian going by the name Nicolaus of Damascus:
“Abram reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude … Now the name of Abram is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abram.”
TERAH IS PRIEST-KING OF JERUSALEM
Abraham directly reigned at Damascus throughout 2048 BC. Then at the onset of 2047 BC, he received instructions from Enlil that he proceed to Canaan. Obliging, he installed a viceroy to hold the fort whilst he was away and commenced his trek southwards. Abraham’s first port of call was Shechem. Located in the middle of vital trade routes, Shechem was a key commercial centre, trading in local grapes, olives, wheat, livestock and pottery.
As important, it was a bastion of the Canaanites, who as we have already indicated gravitated more toward Marduk than Enlilites. Abraham was therefore determined that he convert the city’s population to Enlilite allegiance. As such, he built an altar there which he dedicated to Enlil. A pleased Enlil once again reiterated the promise he had made to him – that he and his people would inherit the entire land of Canaan.
Next, Abraham moved about a few kilometres south of Shechem and a little beyond a small town known as Shiloh. There, about 12 miles north of Jerusalem, he again built an altar to Enlil in the vicinities of Mount Moriah and its sister mountains Mount Zophim and the famed Mount Zion. All these three mountains were located around Jerusalem and housed the Anunnaki’s inter-space travel Mission Control Centre. This can easily be gleaned from the very names of the mountains – Mount Moriah meant “Mount of Directing”; Mount Zophim meant “Mount of Observers”; and Mount Zion meant “Mount of Signal”. The altar Abraham built here he called Beth-El, meaning “God’s House”.
It was at this time that Terah was ordained as the Priest-King, or Melchizedek, of Jerusalem by Enlil. He was 146 years old having been born in 2193 BC. Note that with substantial Anunnaki blood coursing through his veins, Terah was not walking on a cane or confined to a hammock: he was still fit and his faculties were intact. Unlike other Canaanite cities, Jerusalem was one particular place where the Enlilites had enormous clout.
Leaving his father in charge of Jerusalem, Abraham proceeded to Hebron (in today’s West Bank), about 30 km south of Jerusalem. Like Shechem, Hebron was an important economic centre owing to its strategic position on the crossroads between the Dead Sea to the east, Jerusalem to the north, and the Negev Desert and Egypt to the south. Hebron was also significant in two other ways. Firstly, nestling in the Judean Mountains, it was militarily well-fortified.
Secondly, it was the one place in the whole of Canaan where the Nephilim (also known as Rephaites) were concentrated. The Nephilim were a gigantic race that had resulted from intermarriages between Earthlings and the Igigi. Unlike demigods, who were also part-Anunnaki, part-Earthling, the Nephilim were not treated as royalty but were in fact spurned as a race of rascals because of their predatory and cannibalistic treatment of mankind in the globalwide famine that preceded the Deluge of Noah’s day.
Abraham was desirous that the Nephilim be won over to the Enlilite cause too. Thus at Hebron too, he built an altar to Enlil. Altars were places where homage was paid to a god, the equivalent of today’s churches. They were not temples or synagogues: they were simply platforms.
GENERAL ABE SECURES SPACEPORT
Having secured Jerusalem and having accomplished his devotional ends at Hebron, Abraham moved on. His destination this time around was the Negev Desert, the principal focus of his mission. The Negev, which meant “The Dryness”, a name that suited its aridity, was a parched region where Canaan and the Sinai Peninsula merged.
The specific place Abraham stationed was known as the Oasis of Kadesh-Barnea. Kadesh-Barnea went by several names, which included Ein-Mishpat, Bad-gal-dingir (the name by which Sumerians called it), and Dur-Mah-Ilani (what Sargon the Great called it). Kadesh-Barnea was the gateway to Tilmun, the spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula. No Earthling was allowed to go beyond Kadesh-Barnea without special permission from the gods Utu-Shamash or Nannar-Sin. Kadesh-Barnea was the furthest place Shulgi reached when he militarily campaigned in Canaan. The iconic Gilgamesh also sought the green light to proceed into Tilmun at Kadesh-Barnea.
From Kadesh-Barnea, there was only one other place to touch before Tilmun. This was El-Paran, meaning “God’s Gloried Place”. Also known as Nakhl, El-Paran was the official retreat of Nannar-Sin and his wife Ningal (from whom the name Nakhl derived). It was an isolated and highly fortified oasis in the great, desolate plain that was the Sinai Peninsula. It was at El-Paran that Sin and Ningal eventually retired post-2024 BC, after the upheavaling of Sodom and Gomorrah.
It was at Kadesh-Barnea that Abraham ensconced himself with his troops, practically ring-fencing the spaceport from possible seizure by Nabu’s forces. It was whilst Abraham was at Kadesh-Barnea that two things happened. First, Amar-sin was crowned as the new King of Sumer-Akkad, succeeding his father Shulgi, who had died in a death engineered by Enlil the previous year (2048 BC). In Genesis, Amar-Sin is referred to as “Amraphel King of Shinar,” Shinar being the Hebrew name for Sumer. As can easily be gleaned from his theophoric name, Amar-Sin (meaning “Adorer of Sin”) was a protégé of the god Nannar-Sin. Second, Abraham received new instructions from Enlil. He was to advance on northern Egypt, sever it from the rest of Egypt, and append it to Canaan.
GENERAL ABE SETS FOR EGYPT
Regarding Abraham’s foray into Egypt, the Bible does own up on the event. It does state unequivocally that from the Negev Desert Abraham did head for Egypt. The story is related from GENESIS 12:10-13:2. The passage says Abraham left the Negev for Egypt to seek grain there as there was famine in Canaan. Josephus echoes it very closely in the following words:
“Now, after this, when a famine had invaded the land of Canaan, and Abram had discovered that the Egyptians were in a flourishing condition, he was disposed to go down to them, both to partake of the plenty they enjoyed, and to become an auditor of their priests, and to know what they said concerning the gods; designing either to follow them, if they had better notions than he, or to convert them into a better way, if his own notions proved the truest.”
What emerges as curious is that when Abraham gets to Egypt, he’s received not by agricultural traders but by a Pharaoh. Even more curious, when Abraham returns from Egypt, he is not accompanied by wagons of grain or any other agricultural produce. Instead, what we’re told is that he emerges from Egypt as a filthy rich man – “heavily stocked with cattle, with silver and with gold”.
Clearly, there’s more than meets the eye, which the Genesis writers deliberately left out. They do not even state how long Abraham stayed in Egypt because had they done so, the readers would have become curious as to why a person who left in an emergency situation (in the midst of famine and the vital safeguarding of the all-important spaceport) should have taken so long in a foreign country.
It is only when we turn to the Egyptian records and read intimations in the Sumerian chronicles that we get the true circumstances of Abraham’s journey to Egypt. The insights we thus again are that the Genesis story took place when Abraham travelled from northern Egypt (ironically called Lower Egypt in Egyptian chronicles) to southern Egypt (equally referred to as Upper Egypt in Egyptian chronicles). At the time, Abraham was no longer a Canaan-based military general: in what turns out to be one of the Bible’s best-kept secrets, Abraham was a Pharaoh of a part of Egypt.
NEXT WEEK: ABRAHAM’S FORAY INTO EGYPT
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.
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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.