EDITORIAL: The enemy inside the walls

Roman statesman, lawyer, academic and sceptic philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, simply known as Cicero, millennia ago said “a nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within”.He described the enemy at the gates of a city as less formidable, because an outside foe is known and carries his banner openly.However, “the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself”.More disconcerting for Cicero was that the traitor inside the walls appears not be a traitor.“He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.”In the context of the Swapo congress this weekend, the traitor will come in many shapes and forms. He seeks to win at all cost – even if that means destroying Swapo for his own sake. He will purge, humiliate and alienate those who democratically stood against him. And in 2024, when even the purged become useful tools for parochial ends, the victims will go into hiding. And when the party itself gets a hiding, the traitor will cry crocodile tears with the entire flock – knowing deep inside he was the invisible architect of that destruction.

EDITORIAL: The enemy inside the walls

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-01

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EDITORIAL: The enemy inside the walls

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-01

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