Tragic King Tut
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Ill-fated Moses’ son succeeds to throne after short-lived rule by Aaron
At the time Moses was Pharaoh of Egypt, was his grandfather Joseph alive? He most likely, or almost certainly, was. The Bible says Joseph was 110 years old when he died, but that is just a symbolic number. It simply was a reflection of Egyptian tradition, from whose annals the Genesis casually extracted the number. In his book, CHRISTIANITY, AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION, Ahmed Osman puts the number 110 in context as follows:
“As the average age to which people lived at the time was about 30, Ancient Egyptians considered old age to be a sign of wisdom, and those who attained long life were looked upon as holy figures. Both Joseph (of the Bible) and Yuya (Joseph in Egyptian records) were considered wise by Pharaoh. Of Joseph, he said: ‘There is none as discreet and wise as thou art’ (GENESIS 41:39). Yuya is also described on his funerary papyrus as ‘the only wise, who loves his god’.
The age Egyptians ascribed to those who lived to be wise was 110, irrespective of how old they actually were when they died. Amenhotep, son of Habu, an Egyptian magician in Yuya's time, was said to have lived 110 years although the last information we have about him puts his age at 80.”
Grafton Elliot Smith, the British anatomist who examined Joseph’s embalmed and well-preserved remains in 1905, put his age at the time of his death at about 60. Smith could venture a reasonable guess because the body was in such good condition that it was like Joseph had died only a few days before. But Smith was quick to add the disclaimer that, “it must be understood that the mention of such a figure is little more than guesswork”.
Smith’s caution was spot-on. For if we are to go by Egyptian records, Joseph was well beyond 60 when he died but no more than 75 years old at most. The one piece of instructive information scholars have overlooked is an inscription that was found once on Joseph’s royal funeral statuette and more than 20 times on his funerary papyrus. It says, “Holy Father of the Lord of the Two Lands”. WHAT THIS STATEMENT SUGGESTS IS THAT AT THE TIME JOSEPH DIED, HE WAS A PARENT TO THE REIGNING PHARAOH. The term “Two Lands” was an epithet for Egypt (as it comprised of Upper and Lower Egypt) and pharaohs were referred to as Lord. Was Joseph a father to a pharaoh?
YES HE WAS. HIS SECOND-BORN SON EPHRAIM (Aye to the Egyptians) DID BECOME PHARAOH ALRIGHT, THE FOURTH FROM MOSES. With this piece of the jigsaw puzzle in place, we’re now in position to reckon the approximate age at which Joseph died. He was taken to Egypt when he was 17 and thirteen years later, at age 30, he became viceroy to Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV. The pharaoh Joseph found in office was therefore Tuthmosis IV’s predecessor, Amenhotep II, who ruled for 23 years.
We don’t know for sure when Tuthmosis became King, but we know he ruled for about 10 years, so that when his successor Amenhotep III took over, Joseph was 40 years old. Moses, who succeeded Amenhotep III, was in power for 17 years, by which time Joseph was 57 years old. The next 3 pharaohs after Moses (all four of whom are referred to as the Armana Kings by Egyptologists) ruled for a total of 16 years. Ephraim, the very last of the Armana Kings, was in power for only 4 years.
Since Joseph died during the rule of Ephraim, he couldn’t have been more than 73 years old whilst on his death bed. The long and short of the story is therefore that Joseph was alive when Moses was pharaoh and he must have agonized to see his grandson being forced to quit the thronal seat of the world’s most powerful country of the day.
JOSEPH BURIED IN ROYAL GRAVE
When Joseph died, he was embalmed, or mummified, meaning his body was chemically preserved to guard against wasting away by way of decomposition, so that even when his body was unearthed in 1905, it looked as though he had been buried less than a week prior. Mummification was a lengthy, painstaking process. In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt and wrote that it took 70 days altogether, with 40 of these days dedicated to dehydration of the body. Furthermore, mummification was a very expensive undertaking. As such, only royals, initially, and nobles later, could afford it. At some stage, well-heeled ordinary people were able to embalm their dead too.
Why was mummification deemed necessary? Writes Ahmed Osman: “From their earliest times, the Egyptians tried to preserve human as well as animal bodies after death. They believed that the spiritual element in a person leaves the body at the time of death, but would one day return provided that the body had not been destroyed. It was because of this belief that, from the early days of the Old Kingdom, they worked at developing the techniques of mummification.”
The Bible and Egyptian archives are in accord that Joseph was embalmed. Having so affirmed, the Bible then shoots itself in the foot: it says that Joseph was buried in Shechem in Canaan and that what was carried to Canaan were mere “bones” (JOSHUA 24: 32). Both these are blatant lies. We know that Joseph was buried in Egypt, in the Valley of Kings: that is incontrovertible truth since that was where the body was found.
As for the aspect of “bones”, it is clear the Jewish scribe who wrote the passage was totally ignorant of what mummification entailed. When a body is mummified, it does not reduce to bare bones: it looks like that of a full-bodied person simply asleep, with the skin and all external features as intact, for the most part, as they were on the day he died. The biblical editors without shame or scruple concocted the story of Joseph being buried in Canaan simply because they did not like the idea that the Patriarch was still buried in the land of the oppressors when the Exodus had become the cornerstone in the new religion of the Jews.
Now, if convention had been followed, Joseph would have been buried in the Valley of the Nobles. In his case, however, convention was flouted and he was buried in the Valley of Kings, the only non-royal to be accorded such a privilege. The reason of course had to do with the fact that he was practically co-Pharaoh under two Pharaohs (Tuthmosis IV and Amenhotep III) and that he died during the reign of his own son Pharaoh Ephraim.
It was Ephraim who must have insisted, against the objections of the conservative Egyptian establishment, that his father be given such a dignified burial. The Valley of Kings tomb typically was the preserve of the Pharaoh, the Queen, princes, and princesses. Joseph’s wife Tuya was also buried alongside him in the Valley of Kings.
Amongst the items Joseph was buried with were a golden necklace of lapis lazuli, given him by Thutmosis IV, and a chariot to commemorate his status as Commander of the Chariotry, the horse mounted branch of the Egyptian army. “It was the custom in ancient Egypt,” writes Osman, “to place in a tomb objects that had a special significance in the life of the dead person.
This particular chariot is too small to have been Yuya's, yet too big to have been a model. It is possible that it belonged originally to Tuthmosis IV when he was the young crown prince or to the young Amenhotep III, who was only about 12 when he came to the throne. This would explain why, although ornamented in gold, it was not inscribed.”
MOSES’ HEIR IS KING
Following the forced abdication of Moses, he was, as we saw last week, succeeded by his maternal cousin Aaron, or Smenkhkare to the Egyptians. Aaron, however, was simply holding fort for Moses’ heir, Tutankhaten, so that he ruled for only three years, whereupon Tutankhaten took over at only age 13, the teenage threshold. Let us at this juncture put Tutankhaten, who is generally referred to as King Tut, in perspective.
Moses had two prominent wives. They were Nefertiti, the “Great Royal Wife”, and her deputy (also known as the “Younger Lady”) Mery-Khiba, meaning “Beloved of Khiba”. The name Khiba (pronounced Kiya) came from her mother’s side, her mother being Gilukhipa, Pharaoh Amenhotep III’s third wife. Gilukhipa was a princess, the daughter of King Shutana of Mitanni. Khiba (most likely Ninmah, as the Anunnaki deities went by different names in different parts of the world) was a Mitannian goddess. Mery-Khiba, it turns out, was Moses’ half-sister.
That she was called Mery-Khiba is not simply a nominal style. She was described as the “Royal Favourite” in that she did for Moses what Nefertiti failed to do – produce a heir for him. Nefertiti only had daughters, six in all, namely Merytaten, Maketaten, Ankhsenpa-aten, Neferneferu-aten the younger, Neferneferure and Setepenre. As important, Mery-Khiba had a dual royal legacy being an offspring of Egyptian and Mesopotamian kings.
Towards the end of Moses’ rule, Mery-Khiba had practically supplanted Nefertiti as the main wife in terms of the roles, both civil and political, she played in the affairs of Egypt. Her official title was Mery-Amon, meaning “Beloved of Amon”, that is, Marduk, the national god of Egypt. IN THE BIBLE, MERY-AMON IS PRONOUNCED AND SPELT AS MIRIAM. The Bible correctly describes Miriam as Moses’ sister; what it deliberately omits to make mention of is the fact that Miriam was at once a half-sister of Moses and his wife.
Moses had two children with Miriam, a boy and a girl. The boy, the heir, was known as Tutankhaten, which demonstrates the centrality of the Cult of the Aten in his father Moses’ code of values. Scholars have interpreted his name as “Living Image of Aten” but they are only partially right as far as I am concerned. Tut was the abbreviation for Thoth, the Anunnaki god of life (that is, master geneticist) alongside his father Enki. The Ankh was the Egyptian symbol of life.
Aten was Nibiru, the planet of eternal life. Thus the name Tutankhaten stressed the link between temporal life and the afterlife, with Tut himself being the Saviour – the human agent of eternal life. There was nothing peculiar about this denomination as all Egyptian princes were referred to as “Son of God” and pharaohs were referred to as “God” in that they were deemed to be the everyday representatives of Marduk.
Tut was born in the 7th year of Moses’ reign and therefore was 10 years old when Moses was ousted. In order to bridge dynastic politics, Tut married his half-sister Ankhsenpa-aten, Moses’ third daughter with Nefertiti. For the first four years, largely, of his reign, Tut ruled from Amarna. Then sometime in year 4, he moved to Memphis and finally to Thebes. HIS RELOCATION TO THEBES WAS MARKED BY A NAME CHANGE – FROM TUTANKHATEN TO TUTANKHAMUN, MEANING “LIVING IMAGE OF AMON”. The name change had far-reaching religious ramifications which ultimately led to his own death.
KING TUT RESTORES FREEDOM OF WORSHIP
Young Tut was pharaoh in name only: the real ruler of Egypt was Ephraim, his paternal great-uncle, the second son of Joseph, who was acknowledged as the most powerful man in the Egypt of the day. Ephraim not only was Tut’s vizier and principal adviser but he was head of the armed forces as his titles Commander of the Chariots, Master of the King's Horses, and Chief of the Bowmen plainly attest.
Ephraim made it clear to Tut that if he too adhered to and accentuated the Cult of the Aten, the ideologically powerful Theban priesthood would orchestrate his overthrow, just as they did in the case of his father Moses. Tut wasted no time in paying heed to his great uncle’s exhortation.
Tut’s reverse reforms – which went against the grain of his deposed father’s – began as early as his third year in power. He reopened all the Amunite temples Moses had closed, thus restoring polytheism – the worship of multiple gods. But he did not prohibit the cult of the Aten: instead, he subtly elevated Aten. He said he had allowed the worship of other gods because they all were mediators between mankind and Aten, Aten being, as we have already discussed, the planet Nibiru, the headquarters, as it was believed, of the universe. That’s how the plural term “gods” came to mean angels
That Tut had not entirely sidelined Aten was evidenced by the scenes on the back panel of his throne, where the symbol of the Aten took pride of place. Also, a text on the furniture found in his tomb describes him as “the eldest son of the Aten in Heaven”. With old temples reopened, the Theban priesthood reinstated to their influential status, the capital moved back to Thebes and both the King and Queen having changed their names to exalt the national god Marduk, religio-politico morale in the country was at its zenith.
The Theban priests in fact welcomed Tut to Thebes by conducting a new coronation of him. However, it was not Tut who got the credit for this reversion to the status quo: it was General Ephraim, who touted himself as the saviour of both the army and the temple. However, Ephraim was not held in particularly high esteem by the traditional-mined mainstream Egyptians.
Many suspected him, wrongly, for having engineered the ouster of Moses. Thus they continued to refer to Moses (Akhenaten) as the “Royal Mosis”, literally meaning, “Royal Son” but “Real King” in paraphrase. It was the term “Mosis” (Moses) the Bible settled for as the appropriate name for Akhenaten with a view to concealing his epic as an Egyptian King.
KING TUT’S VIOLENT DEATH AT TENDER AGE
Tut was not destined to rule for a long time, let alone enjoy length of years. He died in the 9th year of his reign, aged 21 years. His mysterious death has been the subject of speculation on the part of scholars. What is clear is that he died a callously slow, drawn-out violent death. He was exposed to severe physical torture before he was hanged. What sin did he commit? Who exactly murdered him and in what circumstances? We may never know.
Typically though, such grisly deaths are suffered at the hands of die-hard enemies within the establishment itself. It would be a stretch to say his death was engineered by his own great-uncle, Ephraim, who was in charge of the armed forces. But Ephraim, even if he maniacally craved power, would not have had his own nephew killed in such a barbaric and cruel way. The people who must have killed Tut were patriotic and conservative elements within the army, who abhorred rulership by the Josephite dynasty, who were technically Hyksos and not indigenous, full-blooded Egyptians.
Tut’s mummy, recovered from the Theban Valley of Kings, was minutely examined by R G Harrison, a professor of anatomy at Liverpool University, and A B Abdalla, his counterpart at Cairo University, in 1968. The examination included the taking of X-rays. The duo in part reported thus:
“When the bandages around the remains were removed, it was immediately obvious that the mummy was not in one piece. The head and neck were separated from the rest of the body, and the limbs had been detached from the torso … Further investigation showed that the limbs were broken in many places as well as being detached from the body.
The right arm had been broken at the elbow, the upper arm being separated from the forearm and hand … The left arm was broken at the elbow, and in addition at the wrist … The left leg was broken at the knee. The right leg was intact … The heads of the right humerus [bone of the upper arm] and both femora [thigh bone] had been broken off the remains of the bone … The head and neck had been distracted from the torso at the joint between the seventh cervical and first thoracic vertebrae.
The tissues of the face are contracted on the skull so that the cheekbones appear very prominent … The teeth are tightly clenched together (from excruciating pain obviously) … The radiographs of the thorax confirmed the fact that the sternum and most of the ribs on the front of the chest had been removed.” The youthful King, a juvenile basically, was killed like a beast of prey by savages who passed themselves off as civilised humans. This Earth, My Brother …
NEXT WEEK: PHARAOH OF THE OPPRESSION ASSUMES THE REINS
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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.