Donald Trump is the oldest American president to assume office. He was 70 when he was sworn in at the beginning of last year.
The man he met this week in Singapore happens to be one of the youngest leaders in the world. Kim Jong-un is believed to be just 34 years old and has already been the Supreme Leader of North Korea for about seven years.
This week’s meeting between the two men in Singapore was historic because it was the first time the sitting leaders of these two countries had met. However, it was no father-son type get-together.
Trump is set on achieving one thing and one thing alone: he wants North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons.
The hypocrisy of the request is that America has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world with an estimated 7000 nuclear warheads.
That’s more than enough power to destroy our world several times over.
What’s more, Trump has made it known that he wants to increase this already large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
America has conducted the most nuclear tests and to date remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war.
The American nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed well over 100 000 people, with many more dying in the years that followed.
North Korea, by contrast, has about 15 nuclear weapons.
Trump, therefore, lacks the moral conviction to tell Kim, or anyone else for that matter, to get rid of their nukes.
Further evidence of the double standards is the fact that America has targeted North Korea’s nuclear capability, but remains silent about other countries that are believed to possess nuclear weapons.
They include Israel, India and Pakistan, all of which are believed to have considerably larger stockpiles than North Korea.
There is only one country in the world that has the moral authority to ask Kim, or anyone else for that matter, to destroy their nuclear weapons and that is South Africa.
The apartheid regime built six nuclear weapons, but dismantled the weapons on the eve of democracy. In so doing, South Africa became the first state in the world to give up nuclear weapons it had developed itself.
We therefore have the moral authority to call upon Kim to give up his nuclear weapons. We do, but we also ask the same of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States as well as India, Pakistan and Israel.