Where's Roeltje?
While Roel van Leeuwen has been very quick to state to the media that his thesis was on the topic of holocaust denial (eh? yes – that is right! He claims it was exposing holocaust denial, rather than the stated topic of satanic/neo-nazi synthesis), his own Live Journal postings give insight in his thoughts about the right to deny the holocaust; or at least the right to academic freedom to write about the holocaust in ways that ones peers might object to. Ironic given that one of his thesis supervisors (the secondary one, Dov Bing, not the primary supervisor, Marg Coldham-Fussell) was instrumental in bagging Joel Hayward (according to the various accounts on the internet).
So, the situation we have is an academic who has fabricated his thesis findings, who supports academic freedom in topics such as researching the holocaust, and being supervised by Dov Bing, who doesn’t accept this as academic freedom, who on top of this calls the kettle black in claiming someone else is a holocaust denier because they apparently published articles dealing with history relating to the holocaust. Wow, what a tangled web we weave.
Thesis problems (by Roel van Leeuwen, aka Diogenes Stone)
22nd-Apr-2006 09:06 am
Well, its started…
My thesis topic is on religious (specifically Pagan) elements in neo-Nazism.
About six years ago Universities in NZ were hit by two ‘scandals’ which were tarred
broadly with the brush of ‘holocaust denial’- Dr Joel Hayward was taken to task over his
Masters thesis in which he said that there problems with the standard and accepted
vision of the holocaust. He is not a holocaust denier, but a historian looking at a highly
emotive topic. The second was Hans Joachim Kupka, who was a PhD candidate in
German language here at Waikato. Kupka is a holocaust denier and neo-Nazi, but its
important to note that he was enrolled in a language PhD, not in politics or history. To
cut a long story short, both investigations had something of a hysterical air about them
and I don’t believe that either investigation was conducted in an atmosphere of fairness
and impartiality. Judge for yourself. Hayward’s perspective can be found at
http://www.joelhayward.com and the official Waikato Uni report on the Kupka Case can
be found at http://unipr.waikato.ac.nz/news/kupka_report/pdf/kupka-report.pdf . My issue
with Kupka is that he was enrolled in a language degree- fair enough if he was enrolled
in history, politics, religion etc. We do have academic freedom and freedom of thought in
this country- it is specifically enshrined in law (one of the few countries to have academic
freedom legally protected- thanks Geoff Palmer!) so it’s a bugger to see it run roughshod
over.
Both these experiences have made the NZ academic community a little bit sensitive,
particularly at Waikato, about the topic. Last night I received an e-mail from my senior
supervisor suggesting that I take onboard a supervisor who had specialist knowledge ‘in
this area’ (what area? Pagan Nazism? Is there anyone in NZ that has specialist
knowledge in this area?). The person suggested was a member of staff who was
instrumental in the Hayward case and central in the Kupka case and is (or was) a senior
member of the NZJC.
Why am I feeling a degree of unease? Lol
In reply I offered two other suggestions for a fourth (!) supervisor.
Its not a matter of having anything to hide, just that I think there was a degree of gross
unfairness in the above cases and I don’t particularly want to be in a position of having to
look over my shoulder and modify my research because of paranoia that may or may not
be groundless.
