“Dedication: To the memory of my father and oma, who lived through the nightmare that these people wanted to recreate.”
The dedication seems to suggest a personal bias attributed to family history, Roel van Leeuwen’s “father and oma” apparently having lived through a “nightmare” which assumedly refers to World War II, although it is unspecified. This is logical assumption (given the title of the thesis linking it to neo-Nazism). It sets up the premise that the thesis will portray some kind of “nightmare” scenario akin to World War II (the holocaust perhaps – but unspecified). The comment on “these people” is unspecific, but coming after the title could be read as suggesting the thesis will reveal that Kerry Bolton and the Order of the Left Hand Path were masterminding a Satanic neo-Nazi World War III from the formidable “superpower” New Zealand.
Personal bias and preconceived beliefs are the enemies of genuine academic research. From the beginning of the thesis a cloud of suspicion arises in my mind as to whether Roel van Leeuwen will be able to distance himself from the personal and emotional themes he deals with in his thesis and provide a factual and accurate account what he claims to be a Satanic neo-Nazi synthesis.
Tags: Dreamers of the Dark, Kerry Bolton, neo-Nazism, Roel van Leeuwen, Satanism, thesis, Waikato University
