Nuke Sinning Cities
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Nergal’s, Jehovah-instigated nefarious proposition endorsed by Council of Gods
The Council of the Gods, the Anunnaki ruling pantheon, met in Nippur. It constituted Enlil, Enki, Ninurta, Nannar-Sin, Nergal, Ishkur–Adad, Utu-Shamash, and Inanna-Ishtar. It was clearly padded with Enlilites as only two Enkites – Enki and Nergal – were invited. Another outspoken peacenik, Ninmah, was deliberately kept away. Nergal strictly speaking was an Enlite as he almost always sided with them.
“By his (Marduk) appeal for their (all other Anunnaki gods) submission, the Anunnaki gods were disturbed and alarmed,” say the Sumerian records. “To a great assembly, counsel to take, Enlil them all summoned. All the Anunnaki leaders in Nibru-ki (Nippur) gathered.” The principal subject of the impromptu, ad hoc meeting, Marduk, was also invited but he declined, insisting that as the planet’s head honcho now, it was his summoning of them they ought to heed, and not the other way round.
His son Nabu, who wasn’t a full-god being the son of an Earthling mother, the late Tsaparnit I, was not invited too. Instead, in the week before the proceedings commenced, a summons for Nabu to appear before the Council as a defendant was issued by Enlil, with Nergal and Ninurta assigned to deliver it.
Ninurta and Nergal straightaway detailed men to comb every inch of Borsippa, Nabu’s Sumerian base, but to no avail: they later reported that he was not there but was playing hide and seek somewhere in Canaan and the Mediterranean islands. Then when the meeting was hardly underway, Nabu sprang a surprise: he pitched all of a sudden at the rendezvous and announced that he was ready to defend himself and his beloved father. “Before the gods, the son of his father came,” the Sumerian archives say.
The meeting droned on for twenty-four hours. “Meeting in Council, the leading Anunnaki debated what to do, discussing the alternatives a day and a night, without ceasing," the Sumerian records inform us. “In the council of the great gods, accusations were rampant, recriminations filled the chamber.” Zechariah Sitchin also relates thus: “The die was cast. Of the various extant sources dealing with the fateful chain of events, the principal and most intact one is the Erra Epos.
It describes in great detail the discussions, the arguments for and against, the fears for the future if Marduk and his followers should control the spaceport and its auxiliary facilities. Details are added by the Khedorlaomer Texts and inscriptions on various tablets, such as those in the Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts.”
ENKI, NERGAL IN SLANGING MATCH
The first to be quizzed though was not Nabu: it was Ninurta, who hierarchically was Enlil’s de facto deputy on the side of the Enlilites being his firstborn. Ninurta was asked why he had allowed the Elamites, the mercenary warriors from Africa he himself had trained, to run rampage in Sumer and cause untold carnage and destruction whilst Enlil was away. This was a serious dereliction of duty since he was expected to take charge of Earthly affairs during his father’s absence.
Defending himself, Ninurta attributed all the evils that had taken place in Sumer during his absence (he had been in Peru, in South America, all the while) to Marduk and Nabu for their unbridled ambition. “They are very rash and self-seeking people,” Ninurta charged. “They want to rule the world when it is not their time to do so.” Nannar-Sin and his son Utu-Shamash, both of whom spoke after Ninurta, heaped all blame on Nabu in particular. “All this Nabu has caused to happen,” Shamash said.
“It is he who has been his father’s instrument of the mayhem witnessed in Sumer.” Standing up, and quivering with rage, Nabu posited before the pantheon what his father called the Celestial Oracle argument, meaning testimony in his favour not by an oracle priest but the signs of heaven itself. Paraphrased, this is what Nabu said: “With the passage of time – with the crucial shift of the precessional clock (zodiacal time) by one degree (equivalent to 72 years) – the Age of the Bull, the zodiacal age of Enlil, is coming to an end, and the Age of the Ram, Marduk’s Age, is looming in the heavens. Ninurta can see it coming at his Eninnu temple in Lagash. Ningishzidda can confirm it from all the stone circles that he has erected elsewhere on Earth. And the people know it too.”
It was Nergal, Marduk’s immediate young brother, who stood up to angrily counter Nabu. “The celestial omens are being misread,” he thundered. "Let Shamash – the Sun god – see the signs and inform the people. Let Nannar – the Moon god – at his sign look and impart that to the land." In other words, what Nabu was saying was that Nannar-Sin and Shamash, whose celestial counterparts were the Moon and Sun respectively, were better qualified than everybody else to state whether or not the Age of Aries had dawned. Of course this was balderdash as Zidda, an all-round genius, was actually the most knowledgeable in these things.
In the process of making his case, Nabu affronted Enlil by accusing him of “injustice and of condoning destruction” since he was not an impartial leader but a prejudiced one who put the interests of his clan first and those of Enki last. “There is no justice,” Nabu vented. “Destruction was conceived: Enlil against Babylon caused evil to be planned (in relation to the Tower of Babel incident).” No one had ever spoken so caustically and directly at Enlil, the Bible’s principal Jehovah. On hearing this, what he called a “blasphemy against the Lord of the Command”, Nergal got into a shouting match with Nabu and the two just stopped short of manhandling each other.
At this juncture, Enki, the father and grandfather of the two adversaries, decided to speak up to. His point of order was specially directed at Nergal. Enki scoffed at the futility of Nergal’s histrionics and put it to him that he just could not stop the march of history. “Why do you continue the opposition?” he asked coolly. “Now that Prince Marduk has risen, now that the people for the second time have raised his image, let us Marduk's supremacy accept. What is coming no one can prevent.”
As Enki was talking, Nergal kept interjecting and heckling him rudely. Enki at long last exploded and ordered Nergal to “get out of my presence!”, whereupon Nergal took off in a huff. The meeting there and then broke up as Enlil adjourned the proceedings to allow for tempers to cool.
COUNCIL OF GODS VOTE FOR NUCLEAR ASSAULT
The pantheon reconvened in the evening. Whilst the meeting was in recess, Enlil had secretly approached Nergal and prevailed over him to propose very radical measures against Marduk. “Let us Marduk of the Bond Heaven-Earth (spaceport) deprive,” he pleaded with him. Nergal promised to do likewise for as long as Enlil expressly supported him in the meeting. Enlil said he definitely would.
In the evening meeting, which Nabu declined to attend as he could not stand Nergal showing so blatant and brazen disrespect to his grandfather, Nergal offered to speak first and Enlil granted him the floor. Nergal this time seemed to agree with Enki’s and Nabu’s earlier observation – that there was nothing that could stop Marduk from becoming the new Enlil. But since Marduk’s intention was to empower Earthlings so that they were on an equal footing with the gods in every sphere of their endeavours, he had to be taught a lesson.
Nergal was anxious that once militarily and technologically empowered, Earthlings could rise against the Anunnaki and even expel them both from Earth and the Solar System as a whole. “We have to activate that which with a mantle of radiance is covered and make the evil people perish," he coldly proposed. What Nergal was referring to were the so-called “Awesome Weapons” or “Weapons of Terror”. In our day, we call them nuclear weapons. The “evil people” were the residents of the two Canaanite cities in which Marduk and Nabu had rock star popularity. These were Sodom and Gomorrah.
It was a diabolical idea which Enki vehemently opposed. "The lands would make desolate, the people will make perish,” Enki pointed out. Sin, who was the dove of the Enlilites, and his son Shamash were non-committal: they voted neither for nor against the strike. Enlil, Ninurta, and Inanna were stoutly for the strike. Since it was basically a stalemate, the matter was referred to King Anu on planet Nibiru. That was accordingly done by Enlil using a sophisticated interstellar communication device. “There was constant communication with Anu: Anu to Earth the words was speaking, Earth to Anu the words pronounced.”
King Anu gave his nod to the motion. However, he demanded that Enlil see to one precondition basically. This was that a seven-day notice should be given to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah so they prepare to escape to safety. “Under no circumstances should innocent people be harmed,” insisted “Our Father Who Art In Heaven”. “Mankind must be spared. Only the battlefront combatants, their arsenals, and potentially strategic sites should be targeted.” The latter referred to the spaceport mainly. “The targets must be specifically approved. Igigi gods manning the space platform and the shuttlecraft have to be forewarned.”
Upon hearing Anu’s affirmation of the nuclear strike, Enki stormed out of the meeting in vain protest. “What was destined to be, your decision cannot undo,” the wise Enki mouthed off as a parting shot. The moment Enki made his exit, Enlil announced that the council would henceforth be known as the Council of War as it was strictly war against Marduk and his people they would now discuss.
The council proposed Nergal and Ninurta, the aptly named God of War, as the joint commanders of the knockout war against Marduk and Nabu. Inanna appealed to fellow members of the War Council to make sure that Enki, Marduk, and Nabu were not made aware of the exact day of the attack. “Cover your lips” she entreated them.
LORD NINURTA CALLS ON GENERAL ABE
The War Council, however, did not entirely heed King Anu’s wishes. They made their own additions and subtractions. For example, an attack against Nabu and his temple Ezida in Borsippa was also penciled in. The only people it decided to alert in advance were the few key, Canaan-based Earthlings who were pro-Enlilite, as well as all the Earthlings and Anunnaki who manned the spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula.
Once everything had been scheduled, Ninurta was detailed to fly to Canaan forthwith and evacuate General Abraham, who was presently camped in Hebron, ready to tackle Marduk’s warriors, who had rallied in force again for the final tilt at seizing the spaceport. Setting off for Hebron, Ninurta was accompanied by two other “gods”, that is, fellow Anunnaki. These were actually Mal’akhim, meaning “roving ambassadors”, with considerable discretionary powers as we shall see but described as “angels” in Genesis, which is not exactly far-fetched anyway as in Sumerian angels (An-Gal) meant “Great Ones of the Lord”.
Ninurta and his two companions touched down at Abraham’s encampment in a stealth, silent flying saucer as Abraham did not hear the sky vehicle at all as it swooped down, that’s how sophisticated Anunnaki technology was. “Yahweh (Ninurta) appeared to him (Abraham) among the oaks of Mamre as he was sitting at the opening of the tent when the day was brightly warm. When he lifted up his eyes, behold, he saw three men standing by over against him. As he saw them, he ran from the opening of the tent to meet them and bowed down before them” – GENESIS 18:1-3.
The first thing Abraham, who was now 99 years old (but still physically fit since he had a great deal of Anunnaki blood in him) was to wash the feet of his three VIP guests. That done, he held a banquet for them. Thereafter, the gods invited him into the flying saucer for an aerial survey of Sodom. It was during the flyover that Ninurta made known to the general Enlil’s decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah using nuclear weapons.
“Because the outcry regarding Sodom and Gomorrah has been great, and the accusations against them being grievous, I decided to come down and verify,” Ninurta said. “If it is as the outcry reaching me, they will be destroyed completely. If not, I wish to know anyway.”
Although as a military general Abraham was used to shedding blood, he was not without a heart.
He thought the decision was too extreme since the vast majority of the peoples of Sodom and Gomorrah were innocent people who were simply caught up in the euphoria of the Marduk factor. But as far as Ninurta was concerned, there was scarcely any “righteous” people in Sodom and Gomorrah: everybody was a “sinner” and so deserved to die. Enlilites defined a righteous person as one who deferred to Enlilite gods and a sinner as one who deferred to Enkite gods.
Abraham spiritedly argued against his god. He impassionedly implored him to spare the two cities for as long as at least 10 people in there were pro-Enlil but Ninurta just could not budge. As far as he was concerned, the only pro-Enlilite people in the whole of Sodom and Gomorrah were Lot and his family. These were the only ones who were to be evacuated from there. Abraham, his family, and his forces too were to leave Hebron immediately so as to be way clear of the effects of the radiation cloud arising from the nuclear blast that was certain to billow over the entire Canaan.
A dogged Abraham at least managed to convince Ninurta to send a fact-finding team – call it an espionage team for that was what it actually was – to Sodom just in case the people there were not as pro-Marduk as Ninurta supposed they were. Accordingly, a commission to that effect headed by the two Anunnakis who had accompanied Ninurta was dispatched forthwith to Sodom. They were to be hosted by Lot, who lived there.
DIE IS CAST AS LOT IS EVACUATED
In the Bible, there’s a litany of falsehoods in relation to what transpired with Ninurta’s spies when they got to Sodom. This is not surprising in that the Bible is essentially an Enlilite document. Genesis for one was authored by the Levites, who Enlil had appointed as his scribes. The Bible says when the “angels”, the espionage emissaries of Ninurta, were at Lot’s place, where they intended to spend a night, the men of Sodom swarmed in on the compound and asked that they have sex with them. In other words, the men were homosexuals as Sodom was reportedly said to be riddled with homosexuality.
“As the two stayed in Lot's house,” Genesis says, "the people of the city, the people of Sodom, young and old, closed in on the house; and they called out unto Lot: 'Where are the men who had come to thee tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know them’.” To “know them” is a euphemism for having sex with them. But that is a pure lie: yes the Bible lies, sorry “Brothers and Sisters”. Sodom is what gives us the word sodomy, meaning homosexuality. However, the Sumerian records, from which the Levites researched and which predated the Bible by at least 2000 years, make no such scurrilous claims about Sodom and Gomorrah.
The people who descended on Lot’s place where what we today would call intelligence agents, who of course were pro-Marduk. Marduk’s spooks knew that Lot was a die-hard Enlilite and so they kept tabs on him round the clock. Hence when they saw white-skinned men travelling in a UFO arrive at his place, they knew who they were – they were Anunnaki Enlilites. Rightly, therefore, they decided to interrogate them.
The Anunnaki team, however, feared that indeed as spies, they would be detained if they simply gave in and so they opted to resist. They had on them very sophisticated, hand-held laser beam weapons which they directed at Marduk’s intelligence agents and rendered them blind. “And when the people persisted, even attempting to break down the door to Lot's house, the angels smote the people at the door, young and old, with a blindness, and they gave up finding the door."
Ninurta’s spies did not need further evidence: Marduk had literally captured Sodom. The programme changed there and then: they had to return to Hebron and report their findings to Ninurta. “Lot, pack up what you can,” they said. “We’re taking you out of the city right away – you and your immediate family as well as your relatives who are resident in this city. For we’re about to destroy it.”
Lot, who was so much in love with the rich and prosperous city, hesitated. His son-in-laws, who were his only other relations in Sodom, outrightly refused, saying there was no way they were going to leave such a paradise as Sodom, whose prosperity and individual wellbeing of its citizens had been greatly enhanced by the use of Ormus, which Marduk had mainstreamed there. The Anunnaki therefore grabbed hold of Lot, his wife, and his two virgin daughters and hurriedly commandeered them into the UFO. There simply was no time to waste.
NEXT WEEK: “FIRE AND BRIMSTONE” REIGNS ON “SINNING CITIES”
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
| T |
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.