The natives can do it

Firmly in the spirit of Neville Chamberlain, a former British ambassador to Moscow expresses sentiments that are quite openly reactionary - a real throwback to the 1930s - in a Financial Times op-ed piece entitled Let the Russians Sort Out Russia:

Although Russians today do not enjoy our kind of democracy, they do enjoy an unprecedented, if precarious, degree of personal prosperity, of access to information, of freedom to travel and even - within limits - to express their views. To argue that they cannot go on to construct their own version of democracy is a kind of racism. It may take decades, even generations; the construction of democracy always does. But if the Indians can do it, so can the Russians.