Qatar and the Financial Wiz-Khalifas

This will probably come as no shock to anyone who has read my previous biographical anecdotes. Most of you are quite familiar with how I manage to get myself ‘stuck’ in strange situations, and generally get myself into trouble. I tend to find myself somehow involved in shady companies, with shady bosses, making shady deals, where lots of money changes hands, but I never see any of it, and then something weird happens.

Today I am free. I have broken the chains that kept me shackled to the hedge fund administrator’s desk. Finally I made the decision and absconded from the evil-doers and their financial wizardry. I have walked out from a job that was slowly and meticulously sucking the life source from my being.

No more do I have to force myself to read pseudo-philosophic ramblings of hedge fund manager from hell Ray Dalio, or succumb to a self-inflicted lobotomy reading Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle, (two books that were a requirement by law, and which I tried with every excuse possible to avoid reading).

No more will I have to pretend to rejoice with 'the team' when an earthquake occurs, or war breaks out somewhere in the world, or Sarkozy speaks, because it means we are making a profit! Nor do I have to work fifty plus hours a week, and weekends, with no overtime, no bonus, no respect, not even a thank you. I will no longer have to listen to daily character assassinations of myself and my colleagues either. This was my final foray into the corporate world of international finance… I’m exhausted and I’m through with those bastards.

Lies rule our lives, but only if we let them.

The fund that bought me as a slave, sorry, that I worked for, was given one hundred million dollars by Sheikh Hamad Bin-Khalifa Al Thani - a very good friend of the West. The money is his government's pension fund of the people of The State of Qatar. Apparently this is a secret. However, I was never asked to sign a secrecy order and my contract has officially been terminated.

Therefore, I guess I can talk about it now?

Yes, just look at this. Even as I write it I cannot believe I worked for yet another company, whose sole purpose was to gamble money for the unscrupulous Arabs on the international stock market. The profits of which, used to fund war, to pay for weapons, and allow American military to continue to operate their routes through the Middle East. The product being death and destruction - allegedly. Did I just say that? I mean they probably spend it on those fancy hotels that no one can afford to stay in, that have bath taps made of gold.

Yes, indirectly, I worked to further the goals of the elite. Not my goals, for I am sheeple. This entire country (Cyprus) is full of sheeple. It appears we are all working here to further this agenda. My working life, my so-called career in administration, continued to be one big lie it would seem. A sick, sad world indeed.

So now what have I done? Unemployment is at an all time high, the country may very well be dragged down the toilet along with Greece the motherland. I am officially broke, as every penny I ever made has gone to the banks. I may very well lose my home and car too.

While this carries on, I do have one personal achievement that this hypocrite can be proud of. Finally, my writers' workshop group, which I mentor for free on weekends, has published its first book of recent works, called Synthesis. We have each contributed a few pieces of writing, and will sell the book completely for charity, to buy books for a local childrens hospital.

Being able to give something back to community has been invaluable to my own self-esteem which has slowly eroded over the past few months. The constant barrage of negativity received through working for an international hedge fund with the sole purpose of furthering the cause, the NWO…. No wonder I have become ill, I almost died, again. My morals, my thoughts, my dreams, my expression, were all being gradually stripped from me as I became a ‘cog in the machine’ again. No dead babies required this time.
http://thesignificanceofr.blogspot.com/2010/09/look-whos-talking.html

Although I am quite terrified of being unemployed, it is nothing to the plight of my body and soul should I continue to accept my master’s whip. Perhaps I waited too long and allowed my health to deteriorate while I pondered my next move. Better late than never I guess.

I didn't really think about it until last week, that however many degrees of separation there are between me and the Emir of Qatar… the financial Wiz-Khalifa, I don’t need this kind of karma. I’d rather be jobless and alive, than a zombie slave of the elite.

Syria - before it became Mordor - Part 1

I have spent time in Syria and can speak from experience of the place. I’ve met people, talked with them, travelled in the city of Aleppo and to rural areas, seen the diversity of cultures and belief there. I also saw a country woefully in need of some international help for development, to reduce poverty. The previous sanctions have obviously taken their toll on the place. It needs new infrastructure, new technology, investment, and hope for the future.

As I walked around the city I heard ladies dressed in the Hijab, everything covered, hands and faces. But they spoke with perfectly formed British accents. They talked about restaurants and shoes. No sign of extremism. Taxi drivers and waiters always smiled and seemed happy to speak to me, even though the secret police followed me and my travelling companions around the city.

“It’s like getting in a time machine and travelling back thirty years!” proclaimed one member of my group, as we jostled in our taxi seats while our driver Khaled careered over another of the potholes that decorated the narrow road towards the village he was venturing to.

We had met Khaled on the morning of the first day that we arrived in the city. He was the smiling one at reception. ‘Anything you need, ask me’ he told us. We smiled back and repeated ‘thank you thank you’, like the annoying tourists that we were.

We wanted to change currency and Khaled told us that Muhammad his colleague could help us out. Muhammad led us into a tower-block on the opposite side of the street. At first the hallway, with its ivory marbled walls and stairs gave the impression of a modern shopping-mall entrance, as we turned a corner and up a couple more stairs we realised that the entrance was for ‘show’. We were headed to the 5th floor, via the backstairs, the metal-caged lift wore an ‘out of order sign’ and the walls lost their marble, being replaced by some DIY concrete and plaster patches.

We reached the upper echelons and were greeted by a burly cigar smoking Syrian Arab in sand coloured suit, with the stereotypical sweat patch camo design. We got our currency without the bank charges and were ready to spend it!

About 40m kilometres away from the historic bustling Aleppo streets, Khaled drove us along a road that tapered off into a dirt track several times before reappearing intermittently whenever a mud-brick building appeared. We were bumping around that car as if we were on a fairground ride. Fast high-pitched Arabic music played on the radio. It was our soundtrack and we loved it.

After several stops on the way to ask directions, and allow wannabe Formula 1 racing contenders in their Hyundai-Hondas to over-take us, we arrived at the nameless settlement. Fences that were obviously home-made separated the property from the dirt-track. Mud-brick cattle shed and an igloo shaped house with wooden door, a rectangular concrete bungalow complete with veranda two metres to the right of it. A little girl stood and wondered what these strangers wanted, disappearing into the building to tell her parents. Out comes grandmother, she too in wonderment at the visit of these strangers.

Khaled asked the father to show us his farm and the outhouses. He laughed at us as if to say, ‘Mad westerners, it’s just a farm like any other’. He beckoned us to follow him to the field to pick cucumbers, like we had never seen them before. It was quaint and silly, but at the same time it was wonderful to see people living with such simplicity, totally without fear of strangers.

When I watch the news stories and think back to my time in Syria I feel nothing but outrage. I don’t recognise anything I am seeing in those videos, neither the faces, nor the clothes look like the Syrians I recall. I guess it was coming, the inevitable ‘intervention’ of the Americans/UN.

But Syria is not Libya, nor is it Egypt. The so-called ‘activists’ are not home-grown at all. They are imports from the west… those snipers shooting children in the street in broad daylight? Who are these people? I am not there now so I have no idea what is really going on. But one thing is for sure, someone is lying.