Echoing the cry of every volunteer who has ever run away to some disabled and corrupt country, Dr Nicholas Garrigan rages at a British diplomat, “You guys come here and don’t recognise that this is Africa.  You have to fight violence with violence, otherwise they’ll kill you.”

The scene is from the film “The Last King of Scotland” in which we view the atrocities of the Ugandan regime led by Idi Amin through the lens of a fictional character.  Without that remoteness the film would probably be unwatchable, much as the events of the Rwandan genocide had to be softened through the focus on the experiences of one person in “Hotel Rwanda”.

For generations youngsters have fled the quiet conformity and constraints of their communities and families to come to the distortions, lawlessness and abandon of developing countries.  They come without understanding the context in which they find themselves or the events that are happening around them.  When their home countries preach against the situation they are experiencing – confusing the chaos with freedom – then they shout back, as Garrigan does, “You can’t hold this country to your standards, it isn’t the same.”

They are perfectly correct, it isn’t the same.  But, by denying the local population the opportunity to be treated equally and fairly before a common and clear set of laws, they aid in perpetuating the type of atrocities they frequently accuse their own governments of committing.

In the film, Garrigan maintains the delusion of calm around him until it is far too late to leave.  In "Dark Star Safari", Paul Theroux revisits Malawi where he had been a Peace Corp volunteer.  He expresses rage and anger at the neglect and destruction of all that he worked for.  The seeds for that outcome were present when he was first in Malawi, and he too was unable to do more than hope it would all work out.

Not that the more developed nations have an any more sophisticated approach to dealing with barbarous regimes.

Democracy is not about regular elections and a centralised state.  What it is about is the redistribution of power towards the individual.  No matter how kind and compassionate a leader is, no matter how tolerant and sophisticated, they can never run your life as well and efficiently as you can.  They are not you.

By insisting on negotiating only with a single set of political interests foreign governments make the same mistake as misguided volunteer tourists; they assume that a centralised state will always be benign.  

The success of most developed nations is that, a long time ago, their citizens realised that it is best to assume that your leaders will be incompetent, corrupt and dangerous if left to their own devices.  A wide range of mechanisms are in place to move power around so that dangerous quantities never collect in any one place.  Consider it a bit like uranium 235.

Far from sending money, or demanding a few democratic institutions as sops to “representation” foreign states interested in developing nascent states should act to meet with as many representatives as possible.  Encourage a duality of opinion and methods of interaction; law societies, journalists, rate-payers associations, animal welfare groups, child welfare, tourism societies, NGOs, charities … anyone or anything that acts to create work opportunities and promote different aspects of the whole of society.

No one group can represent an entire nation’s multitude of interests, no matter how well meaning.  And, if that one group is led by someone entirely incapable of caring at all, then you have the final agonised lines of Garrigan as he is tortured by Amin, “You’re a child, that’s what makes you so fucking scary.”