Moses is Co-Pharaoh
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
He rules Egypt with his father for about a dozen years
When Prince Moses of Egypt, who was known as Amenhotep IV in that country, was about 18 years of age, there was an uprising in Ethiopia. Ethiopia was at the time a cherished ally of Egypt. Since Egypt was the mightiest country of the day, the Ethiopian monarch appealed to Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III, Moses’ father, to help crash the rebellion.
At the time, the Egyptian army Field Marshal was a certain Bilam. Bilam, the son of a renowned Egyptian magician, and who was said to be exceptionally wise, also doubled as one of the senior advisors to the pharaoh. It was an army contingent headed by Bilam the pharaoh dispatched to Ethiopia. The King of Ethiopia had already fled his country to seek refuge in Egypt itself.
Bilam made mince of the rebellion without much ado and just as the Ethiopian King was preparing to return home triumphantly, Bilam declared himself King of Ethiopia. The exiled King was gutted. With the Bilam defection, the next seniormost army officer in the ranks of the Egyptian forces was General Moses. Moses was already being groomed to take over from Bilam when Bilam seized power in Ethiopia. The pharaoh had no choice but to set his eldest son on Bilam as already it was suspected that Bilam’s coup had the covert blessings of the pharaoh, that it was all a cleverly contrived scheme for Egypt’s seizure of Ethiopia.
At first, Tiye, Moses’ mother, was reluctant to stake her beloved son in the war against Bilam. She did relent at long last but only half-heartedly so, following a serious talking-to by her father Joseph, who was still alive at the time. Although Moses was a formidable warrior, in Bilam he had an even match. Bilam had “strengthened the walls of the capital, built huge fortresses, and dug ditches and pits between the city and the nearby river”. It took a whooping 9 years for Moses to dislodge him.
However, the returning King insisted that Moses stay by him as he felt secure in his presence and Moses gladly obliged him, particularly that his guard duty entailed economic benefits for his country Egypt. The King even gave him a daughter, called Tharbis, to marry. A year or two later, the aged king passed on and no sooner had he died than the late king’s inner circle installed Moses as the new King of Ethiopia.
This gesture, however, was not a popular one as far as the Egyptian body politic was concerned. However much they loved him, which they indeed did, they were totally opposed to the idea of a foreigner ruling them when they had their own, indigenous qualifying heirs. Of the dissenting voices, the most vociferous was the King’s widow herself, Atenit: it didn’t matter that King Moses was her son-in-law. She wanted her own son to rightfully take the throne.
When he got wind of such stirrings, a level-headed Moses decided not to contend for the throne as he was not a usurper. He sent word to his father that he was stepping down and his father gave him the nod. He was given a rousing send-off. “Moses resigned voluntarily the power which they had given him and departed from their land,” says the Talmud, the Jewish religious canon which is second in importance only to the Bible. “And the people of Ethiopia made him many rich presents and dismissed him with great honours.”
MOSES’ MOTHER ECLIPSES CHIEF WIFE
About 8 years before the birth of Moses, Pharaoh Amenhotep III had moved his capital from Memphis in northern Egypt to Thebes (modern Luxor) in southern Egypt. So when Moses returned from Ethiopia, it was to Thebes he headed. Moses was the son of Tiye, the King’s junior wife. As such, he was not a bloodline heir. But as his firstborn son and army general, Moses was a significant figure in Egypt and enjoyed all the trappings of a heir. “Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of the people,” the Bible underscores in EXODUS 11:3.
Straight after returning from Ethiopia, Moses took up residence in the Malkata Palace complex. Its other principal occupants were his mother Tiye; Sitamun, his father’s sister-wife and therefore his chief wife, at least on paper; Nefertiti, Sitamun’s older daughter; Tey (Jochebed in the Bible), Aaron’s mother who had nursed both Moses and Aaron as infants; Ephraim (Aye), Joseph’s second-born son who was also Tey’s husband; and Aaron (Smenkhkare) himself.
In due course, Moses would become the High Priest of Heliopolis, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Joseph and his uncle Anen (Mannaseh), Joseph’s firstborn son. On becoming High Priest, Moses took the religious name of Osarseph, which was a tribute to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife, just as Joseph had adopted the name Ptahseph in homage to Enki, the Anunnaki’s overall god of Africa who was known as Ptah in Egypt.
Meanwhile, Moses’ mother Tiye continued to overshadow the chief wife Sitamun. Thanks to the stature and influence of her great father Joseph, she was practically the King’s equal. Writes the renowned Egyptian historian Ahmed Osman in his book Christianity, An Ancient Egyptian Religion:
“By the time Moses arrived in Thebes, Queen Tiye, who is known to have been a woman with a powerful personality, had become an increasingly influential presence behind the throne as her husband's health declined with his advancing years. This increased influence is reflected in the fact that her name, unlike that of earlier queens, was placed regularly in a cartouche, a distinction previously limited to the ruling monarch, and was also included in royal titularies. Furthermore, she was represented as being of equivalent stature to the king.”
MOSES IS JOINT-RULER OF EGYPT
As time went by, the pharaoh’s health began to deteriorate. One of his battery of illnesses stemmed from severe dental problems (his embalmed remains have been found with very badly worn teeth and gums riddled with cavities.) Fearing that Nefertiti could step into her father’s shoes in the event of his death, Tiye prevailed upon Moses to marry her so that he would be the one to succeed to the throne.
Not very long thereafter, Prince Moses and Princess Nefertiti, whose ethereal beauty was the talk of the day, tied the knot. In the fullness of time, the couple would have six daughters. They were Meryaten, Maketaten, Ankhsenpa-aten, Nefermeferu-aten Tasheri, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.
Moses’ marriage to Nefertiti qualified him as bona fide heir to his father at a time when the Egyptian establishment were reluctant to countenance the notion of a female succeeding to the throne, which Nefertiti was by rights entitled to being the king’s eldest and bloodline daughter. Tiye then proceeded to persuade her husband into a co-regency with Moses considering that the king was indisposed most of the time: he was on and off. On becoming co-regent with his father, in the 27th year of his reign, Moses took the name Neferkheprure Waenre Amenhotep, that is, Amenhotep IV, as his throne name.
An undated jar seal found in Malkata also says, “of the estate of the true King’s son, Amenhotep,” in reference to Moses. The necessity for the word “true” is instructive. It suggests that Moses was not fully recognised by the Egyptian establishment as Amenhotep III’s heir. His accession was without hiccups but there was an undercurrent of resentment amongst the ranks of the Egyptian religious establishment.
This cabal never recognised Joseph as a true-blue Egyptian. By the same token, they never recognised Moses, Joseph’s grandson, as a genuine Egyptian. It seemed they were aware or suspicious of the Enlilite agenda to take possession of Egypt by sleight of hand.
Moses knew that he was resented by the Amunite priesthood (the priests of Amen-Ra Marduk) but the last thing he was prepared to do was to go out of his way to curry favour with them. In point of fact, Moses, who had a wayward character, was fed up with polytheism – the worship of a multitude of gods (Enkites and/or Enlilites) at the same time.
Although he was co-ruler with his father, Moses was the one who called the shots. His father was pharaoh in name only. Not long after his coronation, Moses made it clear to the Theban priesthood that he was neither a great fan of their beliefs nor in awe of their ecclesiastical overreach.
Perhaps as a quid pro quo to the priesthood’s simmering resentment of him, Moses had decided that he was going to focus Egyptians on only one “god”, thus rendering all other gods to secondary status. This was Nibiru, the planet of the Anunnaki, the Old Testament gods. The name he chose to represent Nibiru was Aten.
MOSES AS PHAROAH CHAMPIONS CULT OF NIBIRU
Nibiru, as we have already underscored in previous articles, was known by several names. They included the Lord; the King of the Gods; the Sole God; the Creator; Olam; the Imperishable Star; the Star of Jacob; the Planet of Millions of Years; the Unseen; the Eye of God; the Beast of Waters; the Sea Monster; and of course the Aten. Maybe we should recap a bit on how these names came to be for the sake of those readers who are new to this column.
Nibiru was the Lord (the Celestial Lord in full) and the King of the Gods because it was the Solar System’s supreme planet. In the Sumerian cosmogony, planets were referred to as “gods”, or “celestial gods”. In the so-called “Celestial Battle” of circa 4 billion years ago, it was a stray primordial Nibiru that smashed into Tiamat, the planet that lay between Mars and Jupiter, and split it into the Asteroid Belt and the planet we today call Earth.
The simultaneous result of this cataclysm was Nibiru’s propagation of the seed of life on Earth. That’s the reason Nibiru came to be known as the Creator. It created a New Earth from the Old Earth (Tiamat) and gave rise to plant and animal life on the New Earth. The term Olam is what the Bible translates as “from everlasting to everlasting”.
It actually refers to Nibiru, as intimated in PSALMS 93:2 ("Thy [Yahweh] throne is established forever, from Olam art Thou”); LAMENTATIONS 5:19 (“Thou, Yahweh, are enthroned in Olam, enduring through the ages”); ISAIAH 40:28 ("Yahweh is the God of Olam"); GENESIS 21:33 (Abraham “calling in the name of Yahweh, the God of Olam"); and PSALM 89:47 ("How long, Yahweh, wilt Thou hide Thyself—forever?"). JEREMIAH 6:16 and PSALMS 10:16 calls Yahweh (Anu in this context) the “King of Olam”.
When Jehovah-Enlil instituted the rite of circumcision upon the Jews, he called it the “Covenant of Olam” (GENESIS 17:13), that is too say, a covenant sanctioned by Nibiru King Anu. The root of the term Olam is “disappearance”. It most aptly suits planet Nibiru in that it is seen by Earthlings only once in 3600 years. This periodic appearance and disappearance of Nibiru gave rise to the Hebrew metaphor “From Olam to Olam”, meaning “an inordinately long time” or simply “forever”, as in JEREMIAH 7:7 and 25:5, where Yahweh is quoted as saying, “I had given you (the Jews) this land (Canaan) from Olam to Olam". The lengthy disappearance also gave rise to Nibiru’s other name, the “Unseen”.
Nibiru was known as the “Imperishable Star” as well as the “Planet of Millions of Years” because from the point of view Earthlings, it was the place of everlasting life. And it became known as the “Star of Jacob” when Jacob and his family went there and returned to Earth after 300 years.
As to why Nibiru was known as the Eye of God, this had to do with Nibiru being regarded by mankind as “God’s” instrument of retribution (remember, Nibiru sometimes caused floods, fires, earthquakes, and global warming when it drew too close to Earth.) Explains Robert Morning Sky: “As the planet (Nibiru) loomed in the distance, the people of other worlds would look skyward and know that an emissary of the King/Queen (of the Sirian-Orion Empire), if not the King/Queen him/herself, was about to make an appearance. Immediately, they would begin to cry out her name AY! AY! AY! In time, this cry would become universal in the empire … AYE! AYE! AYE! The mysterious ‘Eye of God’! The ‘Eye of God’!”
Morning Sky proceeds: “This is a story, that everyone on the other worlds told their children: somewhere in the sky, hidden among the stars or in the clouds, the 'AYE' of the Supreme Being was overhead … watching, always watching … waiting to rain down death and destruction on any people, who had done something wrong. Any evil or crime would be punished with a wrath, that could destroy the entire planet! While the story scared many a child, the meaning of the tale was very clear … the forces of the Queen/King were always overhead, always monitoring the activities of the people on the planet below (Earth). Though one could not always see the (celestial) ship (Nibiru) … it was there … somewhere!"
Explaining why Nibiru was known as the “Beast of Waters” or the “Sea Monster”, Morning Sky has this to say: “Many stories (of Nibiru) described the most horrible 'Beast of the Heavenly Waters'. A monster with one horrible eye, that could see everything and could spit fire … Other stories told how the 'Beast of the Waters' traveled the 'rivers of heaven', and was capable of destroying ships and swallowing up their human pilots.
Obviously, since this 'beast' traveled the 'rivers of heaven' (space, the Ocean of the Kaa), this was a reference to the Great AR (Nibiru). Since the 'Beast' was 'of the Waters' or the 'rivers of heaven', many stories about the horrible demon described it as a horrible 'Sea Monster' or a 'Demon Sea Creature'.”
WHY MOSES ACCENTUATED THE CULT OF THE ATEN
Moses chose Nibiru as his primary religious frame of reference for two reasons basically. First, the name honoured Marduk. If you recall, one of Marduk’s 50 titles as Earth’s Chief Executive since 1954 BC was Nibiru. Marduk had in fact introduced the “Star Religion” in Babylon, which focused on Nibiru, the Imperishable Star aka the Star of Jacob, since he now regarded himself as the personification of that planet.
When Marduk was referred to as Amen-Ra, meaning Ra the Unseen, it was not necessarily because of his periodical absences from Egypt: it was a synonym with Nibiru. When Nibiru was not seen by Earthlings, it was said to have gone to the “rear of the horizons, to the height of Heaven”. During this period, it was the “Unseen”. In Egypt’s Star Religion, when Nibiru returned, it would do so as the Aten. In Sumer or Babylon, it would do so as the “Planet of the Crossing” (that is, a planet coursing down the crossroads between Jupiter and Mars), which was precisely what the term Nibiru meant.
Second, Nibiru represented an idyllic place. Nibiru was the Aten, which in this context meant “Eden” or “Paradise”. Indeed, according to The Book of the Dead, the oldest complete book, when pharaohs passed on, they embarked on a journey to a utopian planet that was referred to as the Aten. Zechariah Sitchin sets down this journey in the following words: “His (the deceased pharaoh) destination is the Aten, which is also called the Imperishable Star.
The prayers (of the funeral gathering) now focus on getting the King to the Aten and his safe arrival upon it: ‘Aten, let him ascend to thee; enfold him in thine embrace’, the texts intone in behalf of the King. .. The prayers seek to assure a favorable welcome for the King, by presenting his arrival at the Celestial Abode (Nibiru) as the return of a son to his father: the gods who guard the entrance to the Aten there will let him through … The King has ascended the Stairway to Heaven (etherical spaceship); he has reached the Imperishable Star; ‘his lifetime is eternity, its limit everlastingness’."
Third, since Nibiru wasn’t very far from making its reappearance, Moses decided to shift the issue from celestial time (reckoning in terms of zodiacal constellation periods of 2160 years) to divine time (Nibiru’s orbital time of 3600-year cycles). He thus changed the question from, “When will the Age of Aries come to an end” to “When will the Unseen celestial god (Nibiru) reappear and become visible in the skies?”
Be that as it may, the Cult of the Aten in Egypt was not introduced by Moses. We know, from Egyptian records, that it gained prominence during the reign of his grandfather Tuthmosis IV at Zaru, a city that overlooked Goshen, the Hebrew bastion in Egypt. The very first shrine to Aten was erected at Zaru. Indeed, the title of the mayor of Zaru at the time was "Overseer of the Foremost Water in the Lake Area of the Temple of Aten”. And the royal barge in which Moses’ father Amenhotep III and his mother Tiye sailed the pleasure lake at Zaru was called the Gleams Aten. Thus all Moses did was raise the Cult of the Aten by yet another bar.
All the same, the Cult of the Aten was simply one of the also-rans: it was not pre-eminent as it vied with precious other cults for prominence. Also, until the time of Moses, the Cult of the Aten in Egypt was in practice focused solely on Marduk. It was Moses who took it to another level, a focus predominantly on Nibiru, and to yet another radical, drastic level. What was this?
NEXT WEEK: MOSES ALIENATES EGYPTIAN PRIESTHOOD
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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.