fallen hypocrisy veil

For those of us who work in this continent, or in this area of work, certain things are terribly clear, and we are surprised when we meet others who had never thought of this, let alone realised the reality.
In the words of an african journalist:
What's in a name?
"I hear that there are oil militants in the Niger Delta who are marginally different from rebels in Darfur, and different still from the Islamist insurgents over in Somalia, while in Uganda there is an army claiming to represent the Lord, and that is different still from local defence militia in parts of Central Africa.
So what exactly is the difference between insurgents, militants and rebels?
Not much, according to the history tomes on my bookshelf, except ideologies.
For once upon a time someone somewhere was once someone else's bandit or terrorist or insurgent or militant or criminal.
Then the war veteran rebel insurgents may even have stepped up to become leaders of countries and presidents of great republics.
And those thorny words with which they were once labelled were filed away neatly in the drawer labelled "For Future Use Against Those Who Will Challenge Me".
And sure enough, after a while, that drawer will be opened, the words picked from their mouldy state and flung with great purpose at journalists, human rights workers and even bandits.
I have come to accept the notion that the great upheavals in governance and ethnic conflicts that we witness from time to time are really just names being thrown about by those in power against those seeking it.
But far more insidious are those groups of people with no definitive ideology, whose aims are not so clear, but whose actions can wreck entire generations by the viciousness of their blood-letting.
'They must go back to their country, they are taking our jobs' are words far more frightening than the slogans of a jungle madman"

In any case, and what's even more depressing is the same reality in so called democratic states where we come from. Our reluctance and resistance to accept 'our' or at least our nation's involvement in some horrendous business, to the point of complicity with those 'insurgents/ rebels/ terrorists'. Our standard of living contributes to the horrors we read about and our hypocrisy veil furthers the notion of that 'poor black african' vs 'us' in such a charitable but poisonous relationship.