Princess Latifa al-Maktoum, daughter of the absolute ruler of the playboy tourist kingdom of Dubai, has smuggled out a distressing video saying she is being held prisoner and fears for her life. The UN has said they will start an investigation. Three years ago she made a bid for freedom in an escape that had all the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller but was illegally captured in the Indian Ocean and returned home. Last year the London High Court ruled that her father had ‘ordered and orchestrated’ her abduction and also that of a second daughter, Princess Shamsa, who was snatched outside a pub in Cambridgeshire in 2000 and hasn’t been seen since; and further found he had waged a campaign of fear against his sixth wife, Princess Haya, 45, who fled to the UK last year. Princess Latifa was last seen in public in December 2018, in a stage-managed photo call with former Irish president Mary Robinson who has since said she was tricked into believing Latifa suffered from a mental illness.
Sheik Maktoum, 15 July 1949, is one of the richest heads of state in the world, the ruler of Dubai and vice-president of the UAE and has 30 children by six different wives. He has been a close friend of the Queen through his extensive racing interests in the UK though his horses have been dogged by doping concerns. He was also criticised heavily over the enslavement of young boys acting as camel jockeys; and for the conditions of immigrant workers in construction in Dubai.
He is a Sun Cancer in an expansive opposition to Jupiter; with a possessive Venus Pluto in Leo. It’s not a particularly hard chart – though houses will make a difference which we don’t know without a birth time. But the lifestyle and judicial system in Dubai, despite pretensions to being a Western tourist hotspot, is about four hundred years behind the times.
He was always in for a shock this year with Solar Arc Mars conjunct his Saturn which accompanies a major setback of car-crash proportions – though the pandemic won’t be helping as tourist income sinks. 2022 has his Solar Arc Sun square his Uranus for a serious jolt; and by 2023/24 he has a discouraging, stuck Solar Arc Saturn square his Pluto and then square his Venus – blocked in several ways, financially and emotionally. That latter is a time when the Dubai chart is under major strain as well.
Latifa, 5 December 1985, is a rebellious and adventurous Sun Uranus in Sagittarius sextile Jupiter; with Saturn Venus also in Uranus; and a Virgo Moon which will square her Sagittarius planets. There is nothing cheerful in her chart over the next three years, quite the contrary. She has a ‘shocking’ Solar Arc Uranus square her Mars this year; and two stuck, trapped, high-risk Solar Arcs in 2022/23 – SA Mars conjunct her Saturn and SA Pluto conjunct Sun.
In addition to legitimate outrage over her distressing individual plight, there may be other knock on effects for the UK.
1. It – yet again – brings questionable Royal associations into the spotlight.
2. It also turns attention on UK arms’ sales to the UAE which have been used to bolster the indefensible, destructive and inhumane war on Yemen.
3. It could longer-term persuade footballers, celebrity influencers and tourists that there is a taint in being associated with the ‘City of Gold’. Maybe.
See previous posts: 6 March 2020. 4 July 2019. 28 August 2018.
It’s also interesting to look at the astrology for the founding of Dubai – 9th June, 1833. Gemini Sun square Saturn in Virgo, which in turn is quincunx Uranus in Aquarius (all those high rise buildings?). The Sun also sextiles Pluto in Aries. So Sun, Pluto, Saturn, Uranus – the Sun trine Uranus perhaps suggesting the very “modern” appearance, with the Pluto and Saturn undertow?
The luxury loving Venus in Taurus squares Uranus and BML, which seems like a tense mixture, in particular for female citizens. Venus also trines Saturn – tradition and conservative values?
Mars in Leo is flashy enough, and opposes Neptune at 29 Capricorn, with a trine to Pluto (buried treasure)….That interested me, as Dubai is a well-known conduit and smuggling hub for conflict or ‘blood’ gold, and thereby money laundering. One of the main routes for this is Dubai, Switzerland, London. Sheikh Maktoum was caught in a Kenyan fake gold scam quite recently, losing a lot of money I believe.
A terrible, sinister saga – and I wonder what else has been hidden. We know about these three women, but doubtless there are more living under some kind of house arrest.
The Sheikh’s Sun at 22 Cancer aligns with fixed star Pollux, the darker of the two Gemini Twins. Elsbeth Ebertin writes:
“Pollux has a strong Martian nature and has the name ‘the wicked boy’ of the of the sibling Twins. According to its nature, this star is brutal and tyrannical, violent and cruel if in conjunction with the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, MC or with malefics. Just as Mars has its good sides if the energy it creates is channeled constructively, so Pollux should not always be considered as unhelpful. The star badly place could manifest that way, not by the native misusing his energy but by others deceiving him and fate playing him some cruel tricks. Helper if in peril on voyages at sea.” [Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation, Elsbeth Ebertin, 1928, p.41.]
And yes, Marjorie, I wonder how all those people who visit Dubai as a holiday destination will react. I have never visited the country, but have passed through Dubai airport in transit a couple of times. If you go down in the lifts (I went by mistake) you find yourself on a floor where all the migrant workers are waiting for flights. They keep them away from the blinging areas used by other travellers. It is quite an eye opener, and very disturbing to see the difference between the areas. Visitors either don’t care, or are choosing to look the other way I suppose.
Thank you, Marjorie. What a terrible situation she’s in. I hope this does lead to some U.K. soul searching, particularly regarding the sale of arms to UAE which I personally find obscene.
Not a popular opinion perhaps, because the contact gets such an easy ride in astrology but Sun opposite Jupiter can be obnoxious, egotistical, blindly optimistic, pompous, extravagant and pretentious with the tendency to force their religious and/or philosophical views on others. Seeing that the opposition lies across the parental signs of Cancer/Capricorn should not be surprising in this case.
Only a couple of posts ago, Marjorie posted the chart of Anna Sorokin – the fake heiress. She has Aqua Sun oppo Leo Jupiter. Personally I had a very toxic ex- with it.
The word I’d use is “entitlement”. They think nothing of asking or expecting stuff of other people. I suspect there’s a finely honed “victim” detector involved – they latch onto generous others, whereas non-generous tell them to take a flying leap at the first ask. But Jupiterians can be persistent, they’re in it for the experience, so rejection is water off a duck’s back and they’ll keep asking. After all their lack of boundaries are there to be projected onto others.