The Enemy Within

Tuwan Ussery White September/October 2025

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

In 1798, as tensions rose between America and its former ally, France, President John Adams and his Federalist-controlled Congress took an extraordinary step. They passed a bundle of laws that came to be known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Just seven years earlier, some of these elected leaders had also helped pass and ratify the Bill of Rights—the first 10 amendments to our Constitution, complete with their inspiring commitment to protecting free speech and other fundamental civil rights. But now, as war with France loomed, it seemed these champions of liberty were having second thoughts.

These new laws targeted critics of the government along with immigrants—especially French and Irish—who were seen as potentially subversive. The acts increased residency requirements, authorized deportation with minimal legal due process, and cracked down on dissent, criminalizing any “writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States.” It was, according to renowned legal scholar Geoffrey Stone, “perhaps the most grievous attack on free speech in the history of the United States.”¹

A little more than 140 years later America again faced a moment of crisis. Two months after Japanese bombs rained destruction on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ultimately leading to the forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Two thirds were U.S. citizens. They were taken from their homes and placed in crowded internment camps, from California to Arkansas. Their detention was based not on what they had done but on their race and national origin alone. They were, in the eyes of many, the enemy within.

When History Repeats

In Scripture the book of Exodus describes the Egyptian pharaoh’s enslavement of the Hebrew people—a step he justifies by framing them as a threat to national security. He sees that the people of Israel have grown in numbers. “Come” says Pharaoh, “we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies” (Exodus 1:9).² This rhetoric divided the Egyptian people and led to centuries of oppression.

Throughout history this same characterization of certain groups as the “enemy from within” has repeatedly surfaced, often leading to significant infringements on civil liberties and social cohesion. This strategy, while sometimes politically expedient, has led to the marginalization of minority communities, the erosion of democratic principles, and to violence.

Consider Germany in the years leading up to World War II. The Nazi government labeled Jews, Romani people, people with disabilities, and other minorities as “enemies within,” portraying them as threats to the Aryan race. This framing justified mass deportations, forced labor, sterilization campaigns, and the eventual genocide of millions.

Or what about the less well-known Armenian genocide of the early twentieth century? During World War I, the Ottoman government described Armenians as “enemies of the state,” accusing them of collaborating with Russia. This led to forced marches, starvation, and the mass killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians.

In more recent years the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia, during the late 1970s, laid the groundwork for the massacre of a whole generation of intellectuals, ethnic Vietnamese, and Cham Muslims by calling these groups “enemies of the people.” Under dictator Pol Pot, an estimated three million Cambodians were murdered by the government, and millions more died from starvation and forced labor.

Just a couple of decades later, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb leaders framed Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats as “foreign elements” and “internal enemies,” justifying systematic ethnic cleansing and mass killings, including the Srebrenica genocide.

Or think of South Africa in the apartheid era. The government labeled anti-apartheid activists—particularly Black South Africans and their allies—as “Communist infiltrators” and threats to national security, justifying violence, detentions, and the suppression of civil liberties.

Today is no different. We see the Myanmar military labeling Rohingya Muslims as “terrorists” and “illegal immigrants,” thus justifying violent crackdowns, mass displacement, and what the United Nations has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.

Or we see the Chinese government referring to Uyghur Muslims as “terrorists,” “extremists,” and “separatists,” and deploying heavy surveillance, reeducation camps, forced sterilization, and cultural erasure to suppress religious and ethnic identity.

We see the brutal killings and mass displacements in Sudan, where ethnic groups in Darfur have been labeled by the government as “rebels” and “traitors,” leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths and displacements.

These modern expressions of suspicion and exclusion are not new. They are echoes of the same strategies used throughout history—different targets, same tactic. Whether Jews in 1930s Germany or Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar today, the machinery of marginalization often begins with fear-mongering and ends with oppression and violence.

Rejecting Labels

In recent years some political leaders in the United States have revived rhetoric echoing these historical patterns. In today’s over-heated and polarized environment, those who disagree with the powers-that-be have become something more than mere political opponents. They’ve become anti-American. Subversive. Traitors. Evil. Whether it’s those who advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or those who simply belong to an opposing political party, the language of the “enemy within” is being used to demonize and to suppress dissent.

American democracy is built on protecting minority rights, the rule of law, and the principle that all are created equal. When we label our fellow citizens “enemies,” we erode America’s civil foundations. Democracy cannot flourish when suspicion replaces empathy and fear silences dialogue.

This growing use of enemy-from-within language is a potent tool and one that Christians will recognize as part of Satan’s broader strategy to divide, create fear, and justify violence. From Pharaoh’s enslavement of the Hebrews to the atrocities that have marked each generation since, the logic of “enemies from within” has worked to undermine both human dignity and divine justice.

1 Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime, From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004).

Article Author: Tuwan Ussery White

Tuwan Ussery White serves as Chief Accessibility, Belonging, and Culture officer at Pacific Union College, where he is also an assistant professor of social work. He holds a master’s degree in social work and a master’s degree in pastoral ministry and is a minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

test for sheldon