Sumer in Turmoil
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
… as Marduk presses his case for ascendancy to supremacy
Let us now return to the aftermath of what came to be called the War of the Kings, which took place in 2041 BC This is the war that pitted East vs. West, that is, the pro-Enlil coalition of four Sumerian kings against the pro-Marduk alliance of five Canaanite kings. The Sumerian kings had retreated with their tails wedged between their legs after a routing by General Abraham. Since their heads now hung in shame, they had no option but to step down from their monarchical perches. Writes Zechariah Sitchin: “Having failed in their mission and twice humiliated by the hand of Abraham — once at Kadesh-Barnea, then again near Damascus — the invading kings were promptly removed from their thrones.”
However, Amar-Sin, the overall ruler of Sumer-Akkad, was in no hurry to give up the throne: all he did was switch camps from Enlilite to Enkite. Until now, he had been worshipping Nannar-Sin, the reason he was called Amar-Sin, meaning “Adorer of Sin”. Now he set about worshipping, or reverencing, Enki. In the event, he relocated from Ur, Nannar-Sin’s bastion, to Eridu, Enki’s Sumerian foothold, where he was roped in as one of Enki’s top priests. There, with typical monarchical vainglory, he built himself an eye-popping mansion befitting a king.
Amar-Sin’s change of allegiances was a sacrillege to Enlil. Needless to say, his days were numbered. In 2039 BC, the Enlilites engineered his death from a snake-bite. It is ironic that he died from the poison of a creature that was the very emblem of Enki – a serpent. The message the Enlilites seemed to put out there was that they eliminated Amar-Sin for the sin of defecting to Enki, who the Enlilites had dubbed “The Serpent”. Amar-Sin had ruled for about 8 years, from 2047 to 2039 BC.
SHU-SIN TAKES OVER
At the time of Amar-Sin’s death, Enlil, the Bible’s principal Jehovah, was away in today’s Peru, where he had gone to check on progress on new space facilities that were being built under the superintendence of his firstborn son Ninurta. At the conclusion of this mission, Enlil left Earth for a unknown destination, in all likelihood Mars or the Moon.
With the two top Enlilites absent from the Sumerian scene, and with Nannar-Sin more preoccupied with the turbulent affairs of Canaan, a virtual power vacuum ensued. The Anunnaki’s enfant terrible, Inanna-Ishtar, was quick to exploit the situation: she prevailed over her father, Nannar-Sin, to install Shu-Sin, her lover and Amar-Sin’s immediate younger brother, as the new King of Sumer-Akkad. An easy-going Nannar-Sin readily obliged her.
Having taken the reins at a time when the Enkites, led by Marduk and his son Nabu, were in the ascendant geopoliticalwise, Shu-Sin was in a dilemma as to whose side to take between the Enkites and Enlilites. In the first year of his reign, he took great pleasure in furthering the interests of the Enlilites. Inanna had supplied him with a “weapon which with radiance strikes down … whose awesome flash reaches the sky” which he was to use on “the the enemy country which is disobedient”. With such a formidable arsenal, Shu-Sin didn’t need to fight to subdue the enemy: he made them “tremble in awe of his weapons”, meaning typically, they surrendered without firing a single shot.
But although Inanna wanted and expected Shu-Sin to be a warrior king, Shu-Sin was not half as keen. During the 9 years that he reigned, he engaged in only two military campaigns and those were within Sumer itself and not against the “rebel lands” in Canaan. Clearly, he was far from a trigger-happy king. Shu-Sin’s strategy was to tread cautiously as he was not exactly sure as to who finally would carry the day between Marduk and Enlil.
With Enlil yet to show up as the second year of his reign dawned, Shu-Sin decamped from the Enlilites and closed ranks with the Enkites. In order to underscore his loyalty to the Enkites, he even built a ship for Enki, which he called the “Ship of the Abzu”. Abzu, meaning the “Lower World”, was the Sumerian term for Africa.
The ship was designed to navigate the seas at a much faster rate than any of the existing fleet. In the third year, Shu-Sin reached out to Marduk and Nabu with a view to present to them his credentials as a bonafide Enkite. The two gods, sadly, turned him down, dismissing him as a mere opportunist and far from a committed Enkite.
JEHOVAH SPURNS SHU-SIN
The rejection rankled. As such, Shu-Sin embarked on a project to reinforce the Wall of the West, the Great-Wall-of-China-like defense fortress which Amar-Sin had built in Sumer as a bulwark against incursions by the Amaru (Amorites), the Western followers of Marduk. The strengthening of the Wall, which was meant to reinstate him in the good graces of the Enlilites, lasted two years.
The gesture was a futile one as Nannar-Sin was far from impressed: he too looked askance at a seemingly two-faced, flip-flop Shu-Sin. In order to endear himself to Enlil, Shu-Sin “undertook massive reconstruction works at Nippur's sacred precinct (the Ekur), on a scale unknown since the days of Ur-Nammu”. He went on raise “a stela honouring Enlil and Ninlil, a stela as no king had built before". But Shu-Sin was not done yet: he also built a new town for Enlil and Ninli as an appendage to Nippur, the couple’s cult city.
This, according to the Sumerian records, was “the first time since the days when fates were decreed that a king had established a town for Enlil and Ninlil”. Enlil himself still was away but his spouse Ninli, who was around, had sympathy for Shu-Sin. Ninlil suggested that Shu-Sin build a love-nest yacht for Enlil and Ninli, which he did. Shu-Sin dubbed the yacht “The Great Ship”. It was “a great touring boat, fit for the largest rivers” which he “decorated perfectly with precious stones”.
Then having gone on to appoint Shu-Sin as High Priest of the temple at Nippur, whose devotional tempo he raised by several bars, Ninli contacted Enlil and asked him to come and see the wonders Shu-Sin had wrought for the couple. Enlil, who practically worshipped his wife, made haste and was back to Earth in no time: he never said no to his beloved wife, who he never cheated once.
Like his spouse, Enlil was impressed with what Shu-Sin had done but it simply was not enough: at the time, the Elamites were on the loose in Sumer and were committing sacrilege after sacrilege. Sumer was far from secure at all, which meant Shu-Sin had failed dismally. “Instead of greater security, there were greater dangers, and concern about the loyalty of distant provinces gave way to worry about Sumer's own territory,” the Sumerian records say. So when he pleaded with Enlil to accept and confirm him as “the king whom Enlil, in his heart, had chosen”, Enlil gave him the middle finger.
A distraught and desperate Shu-Sin then decided to revert to Inanna in the hope that she could positively influence the powers-that-be and get them to give him the nod. Shu-Sin even built a shrine to Shara, Inanna’s eldest son, a demigod to further incentivize Inanna. But it was too late. In that very year, his ninth on his shaky throne, there was a total lunar eclipse in February 2031, which the oracle priests partly interpreted as a metaphorical eclipse of Shu-Sin. The following year, in 2030 BC, Shu-Sin was removed from the throne.
IBBI-SIN REELS FROM AMARU MENACE
Shu-Sin was succeeded by his son Ibbi-Sin in 2030 BC. During the portentous six years he reigned, Ibbi-Sin was no more or less beleaguered as his deposed father was. Leading the relentless offensive against the hapless king were the Amaru, the white-skinned Westerners from Europe who were fiercely pro-Marduk.
The blitz on Sumer was actually two-pronged. First, there was the Amaru from the west: then there was the Elamites from the eastern fringes of Sumer. The Elamites, if you recall, were the so-called “Foreign Legion”, crack mercenary warriors who had come from Africa but were stationed in Sumer. When the Amaru pounced, Ibbi-Sin unleashed the Elamites on them. This time around, the Elamites were not as effective in standing up to the enemy as they had always been. One reason was that the Elamites used both economic and military means to emasculate Ibbi-Sin.
In the economic war, the Amaru attacked the agricultural and irrigation systems of Sumer, thereby triggering famine and consequently economic collapse of the confederacy. The ensuing economic doldrums were such that at some stage the price of grain spiked to 60 times the price that obtained in peace time.
In the prevailing economic dislocation, account keeping at the tax collection hub around Nippur, where shipments of goods and cattle and the collection of taxes thereon were recorded throughout the Third Dynasty of Ur, came to a halt in the third year of Ibbi-Sin’s reign. Then one by one, the city states of Sumer declared that they would no longer recognize central authority in Ur but would instead rally to the forces of Marduk.
With that declaration came the end of messages of allegiance dispatched to Ur each year as well as the submission of trade documents to verify the income declared by city states. The flow of sacrificial animals to Nannar-Sin temple in Ur slowed to a trickle and in the fourth year ceased altogether.
Meanwhile, a frantic Ibbi-Sin approached the oracle priests on more than one occasion to provide a scenario of what would actually befall Sumer. The oracles were consistent in their prognosis: in 2026, in the fourth year of his reign, Ibbi-Sin was told that “he who calls himself Supreme, like one whose chest has been anointed, shall come from the west”. This was Marduk. He was patiently waiting in Harran for the recapture of Babylon, his cult city, as his son Nabu directed and prompted the Amaru onslaught.
MARDUK PITCHES IN BABYLON
Why did the Amaru meet very little resistance when they marched on Sumer? Why didn’t the Elamites not fight them to the death? Why did the oracle priests keep dinning rather dispiriting news into Ibbi-Sin’s mind? Each of the above states of affairs were not typical. They were in overdrive largely on account of the fact that a new epoch had dawned. This was the Age of the Aries, in which Marduk, according to the lordly say-so of the enigmatic Galzu, was supposed to take over from Enlil as Earth’s new Chief Executive.
If you remember, the Age of Aries had mathematically commenced in 2220 BC. However, the night time starry backdrop still was dominated by Taurus, which is so vast it lingers for an extra 200 years (in addition to its mathematically allotted 2160 years). As such, Marduk was prevailed upon to wait until the Aries backdrop took pride of place. At the time Ibbi-Sin became king, in 2030 BC, Aries was becoming prominent with each passing year, as a result of which everywhere the topic of the day was Marduk’s ascendancy to power. As such, even his sworn enemies now were favourably predisposed toward him, except, of course, for the diehard Enlilite top brass, as his hour had come.
In the sixth year of Ibbi-Sin’s reign, the rampaging Amaru broke through the defence Wall and invaded eastern Sumer. “The Westerners had entered the plain, had entered the interior of the country, taking one by one all the great fortresses”, say the Sumerian records. With the Amaru poised to take the very heartland of Sumer, Ibbi-Sin devoted all his energies to erecting walls and fortifications around the enclave of Ur and Nippur, leaving the rest of the country to its own devices.
Once again, Ibbi-Sin turned to the oracle priests with the hope that this time around a promising forecast would be forthcoming. Instead, the omens of destruction and ruin continued to ring forth. The priests reiterated that, “The Son of the West (Marduk) will arise … It is an omen for Ibbi-Sin: Ur shall be judged.” The nail-in-the-coffin news was delivered in the sixth year of Ibbi-Sin’s reign, when the oracle priests chillingly announced to him that, “The enemy of Ur, the One who calls himself Supreme, has reached the heart of Sumer.” Marduk had finally departed Harran after 24 years of being quarantined there and was now in Babylon! The year was 2024 BC.
When the Elamites heard that Marduk was in the Sumerian heartland, they had Elam secede from the rest of Sumer-Akkad and declared independence. But that was not all: they descended on Ur, set fire to it, captured their very principal Ibbi-Sin, and took him back to Elam, where he died whilst a prisoner of war. The Sumerian civilisation had collapsed.
MARDUK’S TEARY LORDSHIP MANIFESTO
In 2048 BC, the Enlilites had tactfully lured Marduk to Harran and then restricted him there whilst they counter-penetrated Egypt. The tact had now boomeranged. For Marduk had turned Harran from a place of remand to a command post. “From Harran, on the threshold of Shumer, his final thrust he planned: from Harran, at the edge of Ishkur's domains situated, the raising of armies he directed,” say the Sumerian records.
Throughout his 24 years in Harran, Marduk had kept asking his fellow gods this question: "Until When?” This was in relation to his scheduled and rightful supplanting of Enlil as Earth’s supremo. Sadly, he received no answered in the affirmative. But at the very outset of the year 2024 BC, he stood at a public square in Harran and gave the following speech, which was at once humble and defiant:
“Oh gods of Harran (Ishkur-Adad in particular), oh great gods who judge (Enlil and Utu-Shamash mainly) … As I girdle my belt, my memories I remember: I am the divine Marduk, a great god, in my domains as Ra am I known. For my sins to exile I went, to the mountains have I gone, in many lands I wandered. From where the sun rises (the Americas) to where the sun sets (Antarctica) I went, to the land of Ishkur I came. Twenty-four years in the midst of Harran I nested, an omen in its temple I sought.
Until when? about my lordship an omen in the temple I asked. Your days of exile are completed! to me the oracle in the temple said. Oh great gods who the fates determine, let me to my city set my course, my temple Esagil as an everlasting abode establish, a king in Babili (Babylon) install.” The year 2024 BC marked exactly 72 years, equivalent to I degree of the celestial zodiacal arc, since Marduk was made to depart Babylon and go elsewhere to await the right time of accession to the Enlilship.
Having done so, the oracle priests now had told him in no uncertain in terms that his time had arrived, that he should set off from Harran and head for Babylon, from whence he should rule Earth. He could already see a spectacular and prosperous Earth, an Earthly king of his choice installed in Babylon, an Earth filled with joy, a world blessed by Anu. He referred to his dawning era as “The Messianic Times” in which he would “chase away evil and bad luck, bring motherly love to Mankind”.
ENLIL CALLS MEETING OF ANUNNAKI PANTHEON
But although the Age of Aries was visually emerging and indeed was more than apparent on the night time horizon, it yet had to dominate: there were still lingering vestiges of the Taurus constellation. Hence Marduk’s own brothers, Ningishzidda, who was presently at the Lagash astronomical observatory in Sumer, and Nergal, who was based at the scientific station at Cape Agulhas in South Africa, told him his celestial argument simply did not wash: he still had another four to five years of waiting. An irate Marduk countered that he was having none of that hogwash and now proceeded to make two major announcements.
The first was that he had declared the spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula as a Marduk-and-Nabu domain. It was no longer neutral, a least theoretically as it had always been wilily, if not blatantly, controlled by the Enlilites. The second was that he was setting off from Harran and heading for Babylon: there, all the Anunnaki kingpins should assemble in his temple, the Esagil, and declare that they all henceforth were subject to him.
Having so said, he indeed set course for Babylon, “at the head of a horde of Western supporters organized by Nabu”. "I called on the gods, all of them, to heed me," Marduk writes in his memoirs. "I called on the people along my march, 'bring your tribute to Babylon’.”
Meanwhile, the euphoria in Egypt, Marduk’s own fiefdom, bordered on the delirious.
The Ram, the emblem of the Age of Aries, began to dominate celestial and monumental art and Marduk, who was known as Ra in Egypt, was given the epithet "Ram of the Four Winds," and was so depicted to indicate that he was master of the “four corners”, or four regions, of the Earth – Sumer, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and the Sinai Peninsula. Hitherto, celestial depictions showed the Sun rising over the Bull of Heaven, the symbol of the Enlilite-controlled Age of Taurus, but the Bull of Heaven was depicted tethered and held back. Now the Bull of Heaven was depicted pierced and deflated. The message was that Marduk had now taken over from Enlil as the Lord of the Earthly realm.
In their onward march to Babylon, Marduk’s followers were wreaking havoc along the way, desecrating the temples of Enliite gods, including the holiest in the land – that of Enlil at Nippur. When Enlil heard from wherever he was of the defiling of his temple, that even “in the holy of holies the veil was torn away”, he made a madcap dash for Nippur. He "set off a brilliance like lightning as he came down from the skies. Riding in front of him were gods clothed with radiance." The moment he touched down on Earth, he called an urgent assembly of the council of the gods. Were headset to roll?
NEXT WEEK: HELL UP IN CANAAN
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.
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.