Feeding an enemy and building peace
DONALD Trump is unlikely to ever pick up the phone and ask the Archbishop of Wales for advice on North Korea.
But the newly-enthroned leader of the Anglican church has been struck by Biblical verses which state that if “your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink”.
The people of North Korea are certainly hungry.
In the mid-1990s, hundreds of thousands of people – perhaps up to 5% of the population – perished in a famine. Today, more than four out of 10 of the population are thought to be undernourished, with children suffering from stunted growth.
More than seven out of 10 people depends on food aid. Alongside the dangers and indignities of living under a cruel dictatorship, families go to bed hungry.
President Trump’s tenure in the White House may well be defined by how he confronts North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. If the regime perfects long-range missiles then the lives of millions of Americans (and people in other countries) will be threatened; but a military strike against nuclear facilities could well trigger military retaliation against South Korea which would reduce Seoul to rubble in hours.
A President with the genius of Jefferson and Lincoln would struggle to resolve the security and moral dilemmas now facing Mr Trump. But if he turns off the cable news, takes a pause from Tweeting, and thumbs through one of the vintage Bibles found around the White House he might stumble across the same verses that got Wales’ archbishop thinking.
What would happen if the citizens of North Korea were no longer weakened by hunger and dependent on hand-outs?
For decades, the country’s leaders have been able to control a population traumatised by war, devastated by famine and wounded by oppression. A healthy, educated and confident citizenry could pose an immediate threat to the ruling family.
Today, Kim Jong-un strives to convince the impoverished and malnourished population they live in a utopia which is under threat from outside aggressors, and that he is protecting their interests by developing a nuclear weapon.
He must live in fear of an uprising, whether in the form of military coup or mass rebellion, which would culminate in him suffering the type of fate that ended the life of Gaddafi. The nightmare for the world is that his determination to cling to power could lead to a truly catastrophic war which would see millions die in nuclear explosions.
Avoiding such a disaster will require creative thinking of the highest order, and ancient wisdom could prove to be of direct relevance. The ordinary people of North Korea are not an enemy to be contained but fellow human beings who are locked in profound suffering.
Addressing their hunger is a chance to demonstrate compassion and strengthen millions of families we can hope will one day live free of the fear of persecution and the dread of war. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%