David The Last Pharaoh
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Israel’s most famous king ruled in both Egypt and Palestine
Circa 1413 BC, Jacob, aged 550 years, lay on his death bed in Egypt, which was now administered by his youngest son Iu-Sif, Joseph in English, Yuya in Arabic. Although this was about 115 years since the Hykso-Hebrews were driven out of northern Egypt (I-Sira-El) to Canaan, the memory of the event was still vivid in Jacob’s waning but far from senile mind, particularly the abominable deed that led to this outcome. This was the murder of southern Egypt’s black Pharaoh, Seqenenre Tao II, by Jacob’s own kids, Simeon and Levi.
The ejection of the Hyksos from Egypt after a protracted see-saw war had greatly incensed Enlil-Jehovah as it resulted from a unnecessary provocation of southern Egypt by Simeon and Levi. The regrettable aftermath was that there no longer was an I-Sira-El (“El’s Shield”) in Egypt. Remember, I-Sira-El was vital because it denied the indigenous Egyptians, Marduk’s people, direct access to the spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula and to Canaan as a whole.
It was a kind of Iron Curtain between southern Egypt and Canaan. At the time of Jacob’s death, the spaceport was of course no longer in existence. But Jacob was still wroth about Simeon’s and Levi’s macabre deed, and so was Enlil, who simply never let bygones be bygones. More than 115 years after the event, it was now payback time on the part of Simeon and Levi..
First, Jacob blessed his other sons. When it finally was the turn of Simeon and Levi, he refrained totally; instead, he pronounced a curse upon them. Jacob was in fact so disdainful of his two sons that he did not even address them directly. This is what the dying patriarch said to the duo as captured in GENESIS 49:5-6: “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall.”
Jacob withheld blessings in respect of Simeon and Levi because they were “instruments of cruelty” who in the pursuit of self-serving interests had murdered a man and “dug down a wall”. This man was not an ordinary man: he was Pharaoh Seqenenre Tao II of southern Egypt. “Digging down a wall’ is a metaphor for the Iron Curtain Simeon and Levi caused to be brought down when Tao’s sons Kamose and Ahmose ejected the Hyksos from northern Egypt and united the country into one pro-Marduk domain.
Have you ever wondered why the Jewish royal line is traced through Judah, the fourth-born, and not any of his three older brothers? Why was the first principal Jewish domain in Canaan named after Judah and why is Jesus sometimes referred to as the Lion of Judah? Now you know the answer: Judah leapfrogged Simeon and Levi in the Jacobite succession because his two immediate older brothers were cursed. Of course Genesis tells some rather unflattering story about Reuben, but it is pure hogwash: Reuben was nearly 300 years dead when Simon and Levi provoked that comeuppance from Kamose and Ahmose. There is as much legend in the Bible as there is truth.
In the course of time, however, the Levites for one did redeem themselves. They were entrusted the temple priesthood by their god Enlil and took it upon themselves to document the history of the Jews, which they did embellish here and there anyway. The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, were not written by Moses: they were written by the Levites.
HYKSO-HEBREWS USE JOSEPH AS TROJAN HORSE TO REGAIN RULE OF EGYPT!
Having lost northern Egypt in the time of southern Egypt pharaohs Kamose and Ahmose, the Hykso-Hebrews did not take the matter lying down. They once again regrouped and came up with a strategy to win it back by sleight of hand. This strategy took the form of Joseph, Jacob’s older son with his most beloved wife Rachel (the other son was Benjamin). Since we will talk about Joseph in detail at the appropriate time, here we will simply dwell on him superficially.
Firstly, be informed that Joseph was not sold into slavery by his brothers because they were jealous of him. True, Joseph was Jacob’s most beloved son but this was for one reason only – he was the son of Rachel, his most adored wife among his four spouses. To Jacob, Rachel was the effective senior wife, the Mohumagadi, in that although he married her older sister Leah first, he was tricked into doing so (another made-up story): the woman he wanted from the word go was Rachel. Thus it was his most beloved son that Jacob chose to infiltrate Egypt and ultimately regain rulership of the country. Joseph wasn’t sold into slavery to Egyptians: he was tactfully planted as part of the Enlilites’ long-term strategy to blindside the Egyptian pharaoh and ultimately prise the country from Enkite rule.
Exactly how did the Enlilites re-take Egypt? They had Joseph, a genius, impress Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV through his uncanny ability to interpret dreams and a unique gift of far-sightedness. But the person Joseph impressed the most was Tuthmosis IV’s heir, Amenhotep III. It was Amenhotep III who made Joseph Prime Minister of the whole of Egypt. But Amenhotep III went a step further: he married Joseph’s daughter Tiye. Amenhotep III and Tiye had a child they named Tuthmosis V. In the Bible, he’s best known as Moses.
Moses, however, never ruled Egypt: it was his paternal half-brother, Amenhotep IV who did. Amenhotep IV’s other names were Akhenaten and Smenkhkare. In the Bible, he is best known as Aaron. In due course, however, there were intermarriages between the children of Aaron and Moses. It was the resulting dynasty that ruled Egypt all the way to the time of David.
DAVID WAS EGYPT’S PHARAOH PSUSENNES II
What further evidence do we have that the biblical patriarchs were actually Egyptian pharaohs? It is the Bible itself. In RUTH 4:18-22, the ancestry of David, Israel’s most famous king, is outlined as follows: “These are the genealogical records of Perez. Perez begot Hezron, Hezron begot Aram (Ram in Hebrew), Aram begot Aminadab, Aminadab begot Nahshon, Nahshon begot Salmon, Salmon begot Boaz, Boaz begot Obed, Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David.”
These names, folks, appear in Egyptian pharaonic records but in the equivalent Egyptian language. Perez in Egyptian annals turns out to be Pharaoh Rameses IX. Hezron is Rameses IX; Ram is Rameses XI; Aminadab is Amen-Nesban-ebjed; Nahshon is Amen-em-nishu; Salmon is Siamun; Boaz is Bas-Osorkon; and Obed is Amen-em-opet.
What about Jesse and David? In Egyptian archives, Jesse was known as Harsiese, or Psusennes I in Greek, and David was known as Psusennes II. But Psusennes was not David’s Egyptian name: his Egyptian name was Pasebakhaenuit (which can also be rendered as Pa-sheba-ka-en-at), which translates to “The Star of the City” or “Bright Star of the Lord”. Why star? In Egyptian lore, the “underworld”, where people were deemed to have gone after their death, was known as the Duat (actually Dyhwt, which in English is David).
In hieroglyphic imagery, the Duat was represented by a star in a circle. As for the city, this was Avaris, the Hykso capital in northern Egypt. Avaris was also known as Zoan, which is Zion in the Bible. Thus the Star of the City of Zion, the Duat, was King David. Indeed, when Pharaoh Psusennes II was buried, the cartouche inscription on his grave showed glyphs representing a star and a city to underscore the fact that he was the Star of the Hyksos’capital city.
Similarities between Pharaoh Psusennes II and King David in fact abound. Pharaoh Psusennes’s daughter was called Maakhare MuTamhat, while David’s daughter was known as Maakhah Tamar. The Pharaoh’s army general was called Tchoeb, while David’s was called Joab. The pharaoh’s architect was called Herum Atif, while David’s was called Hiram Abif, the masonic hero. The fact that the Hebrew patriarchs were Egyptian pharaohs explains why there isn’t the slightest archeological evidence of their presence in today’s Israel.
DAVID IS KING OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
Of the Hebrew patriarchs (that is, the leading Jewish figures from Abraham to David), only David ruled in both Egypt and Canaan. David was King for 33 years. He ruled Egypt for 7 years and Canaan (the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah) for 24 years. This was from 995 to 988 BC. The Hykso-Israelites had two bases. The major base was in northern Egypt, which they called I-Sira-El. Their secondary base was in Canaan.
Since the patriarchs operated from Egypt, they needed somebody to oversee Canaan in their stead. They thus appointed the so-called judges. Among these judges was the famous Samson, a man of reportedly superhuman strength and astonishing feats. The judges were appointed after the conquest of Canaan by the great Israelite general Joshua. The judges were unelected, non-hereditary leaders who served as military leaders in times of crisis. The era of judges came to an end when the Israelites installed the first king of Canaan. This was Soul. Soul, of the tribe of Benjamin, was the first king of the United Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and Judah.
It seems when Saul was appointed king, it was only in a caretaker capacity. He was more of a viceroy than king, meaning he still was subordinate to King David, who at the time was ruling in Egypt. In 988 BC, David travelled to Canaan, perhaps to check on how Saul was faring as his viceroy. During his absence, the Libyans descended on Egypt, seized power, and crowned their own man, Shesong, as Pharaoh of Egypt.
Having lost Egypt, David decided to take the reins, substantively, of Canaan, but Saul gave him the middle finger, whereupon a ebbing and flowing civil war arose between David and he. It was David who triumphed to become the second Israelite King of Canaan.
Although David is the most revered of Israelite kings, he had a whole host of shortcomings. One of these was a tendency to promiscuity, having married at least 8 wives and sired at least 19 children.
One upshot of his lecherous ways was that he had Uriah, one of his generals, deliberately abandoned at the battlefront and therefore killed all because there was one secret which he didn’t want the nation to get to know about. This was that he had committed adultery with Uriah’s wife and made her pregnant. Worse still, Uriah’s wife was not an ordinary woman: she was a princess. This was Princess Bathsheba, King David’s own daughter. King David, folks, not only had an incestuous relationship with his married daughter but he also tied the knot with her after the tactical elimination of her husband.
HOW DAVID MARRIED HIS OWN DAUGHTER BATHSHEBA
The story of David having schemed the death of Uriah over the matter of a pregnant Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, is a well-known one. It is related in 2 SAMUEL 11:1-26, 12:15-25. However, the biblical story is heavily doctored: it is not entirely authentic. As biblical scholar Elizabeth Fletcher rightly puts it, “The story of Bathsheba’s seduction as we have it in the Bible was edited by court story-tellers during the reign of her son Solomon, and doubtless influenced by Bathsheba and her son”. It was word that was put out by King Solomon that the scribes ran away with and not the real story. So what is the true story?
Of David’s 8 official wives, one was known as Maakhah. Maakhah, we learn from the Bible, had a daughter known as Tamar. Her full names were Maakhah-Tamar. It was through one of Maakhah-Tamar’s male descendents, Joseph, that Jesus was born into this world. To history, Maakhah-Tamar is best known as Bathsheba. Bathsheba means “Daughter of Sheba”. What was/who was Sheba?
Sheba has two closely-related connotations. The first has to do with a city, actually a star city in that it housed the most important figure of the day in northern Egypt, King David. The city was Avaris, the capital of northern Egypt. The second has to do with David himself. As indicated above, David’s throne name was Pashebakaenat. Pashebakaenat can be abbreviated as simply Sheba, meaning “Star”. Thus Bathsheba, it turns out, was David’s daughter. She was the daughter of the Star (David) of the Star City (Avaris).
What happened was that whilst Bathsheba was married to Uriah, David made her pregnant (whilst Uriah was away on duty) and fearing the enormity of the scandal if it became public knowledge, he arranged for Uriah to be killed. After Uriah’s demise, David went on to marry Bathsheba, his own daughter, secretly and in heed of the preconditions she imposed on him declared her his seniormost wife. Thus whilst the palace personnel knew about what had transpired, the body politic had no idea. Remember, there were no newspapers, radio, or television those days. But news has a way of filtering its way into the public domain; hence a secret doesn’t remain so forever.
SOLOMOM INHERITS AFTER DAVID AGAINST ALL ODDS
It was by Bathsheba that King David had Solomon, even today reputed as the wisest man who ever lived, and another son of some fame, Absalom. Sometime after Solomon had succeeded to the throne, we’re told a certain “Queen of Sheba” paid a visit on him. That is the spin the scribes put on the event. The Queen of Sheba was actually Queen Mother Bath-Sheba. Solomon was visited by his mother Bathsheba. Josephus reports that the queen who visited Solomon was the Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.
An Egyptian Pharaoh, as King David was, had jurisdiction over Egypt and other territories up to and including Ethiopia. As King David’s widow, Bathsheba, who was David’s favourite wife, was a queen. But at the time she visited King Solomon, Bathsheba was no more than Queen Mother as David had passed on.
According to Josephus, Bathsheba presented Solomon with “twenty talents of gold, and an immense quantity of spices and precious stones”. That was simply a mother showing affection toward his son, who didn’t need such a lavish gift anyway as he was already the richest man in the whole wide world. The Bible also informs us that Bathsheba as a teenager was raped by his half-brother Amnon and that when the rape was reported to David, he did nothing.
Again that is totally false: Amnon did not rape Bathsheba. It explains why David didn’t act against him. Amnon, who was David’s eldest son and therefore heir apparent, wanted to marry Bathsheba with a view to inherit the Davidic throne hassle-free since for one succeed to a throne, he should have been married to a half-sister. So Amnion kept pestering Bathsheba and Bathsheba seemingly was interested. However, Amnon’s designs on Bathsheba troubled Absalom, as a result of which he had Amnon murdered. It was not about immorality: it all was politics. Amnon was too ambitious for Absalom’s liking.
At some stage, Absalom rebelled against King David, incensed that David had anointed Solomon, who was at once his son and grandson, to take over from him upon his death. Absalom was killed in the uprising by King David’s general Joab. Adonija, David’s surviving eldest son, then had a tilt at the throne too but he lacked the crucial endorsement Solomon received from the prophet Nathan, high priest Zadok, and head of King David’s Secret Service Benaiah. That was how Solomon became King at the expense of David’s other sons who were older than him.
NEXT WEEK: ENLILITE INTRIGUE AGAINST MARDUK AND HIS SON NABU
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”.
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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.