A former prime minister of Australia sparked an angry backlash this week after claiming that “the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonized by the British.” John Howard, who led Australia between 1996 and 2007, spoke to The Australiannewspaper ahead of a heated referendum about the representation of Aboriginal people in the country. Of the British, Howard conceded that they weren’t “perfect by any means,” but claimed “they were infinitely more successful and beneficent colonizers than other European countries.” His comments were criticized on social media as “tasteless” and “bigoted,” with several pointing out that thousands of Aboriginal men, women, and children were massacred by colonists between the late 18th and early 20th centuries.
