From The Dominion Post:

University backs thesis on neo-Nazis

A thesis on neo-Nazism and Satanism in New Zealand will be going back on Waikato University library shelves after it was cleared by the university.

In September, the thesis by master’s student Roel van Leeuwen, was removed after Kerry Bolton, former secretary of the Right-wing National Front, complained that it was substandard, despite the piece winning first-class honours.

Entitled Dreamers of the Dark: Kerry Bolton and the Order of the Left Hand Path, a Case-study of a Satanic/Neo-Nazi Synthesis, it analysed ideas published by Mr Bolton and focused on how neo-Nazi thought was repackaged for a younger generation.

Waikato University vice-chancellor Ray Crawford said the matter had been investigated and the thesis and processes around its creation were deemed to be sound. “The University of Waikato is a place of academic rigour. We don’t shy away from tackling controversial research.”

Mr van Leeuwen was extremely happy with the result and emphasised that he had never set out to attack Mr Bolton personally.

Some complaints raised by Mr Bolton and another person had been around ethics that they had never willingly participated in the research. But Mr van Leeuwen said he wrote a literature review that did not require interviews. The review process was educational in itself, showing how Nazi beliefs still needed to be brought into the open. “I was shocked and disturbed that even in the academic community there was a complete lack of awareness of neo-Nazi thought and Holocaust denial.

“We need to understand why it’s so pernicious and why it needs to be countered.”

Mr Bolton said the thesis included glaring inaccuracies about his upbringing and attributed pamphlets to him that he had never written. He said “the matter was not dropped at all” and he was considering going to the Office of the Ombudsmen.

“It’s hard to point out what’s not slanderous. The whole thing is one big smear sheet … and virtually every page is wrong.” He said the review outcome raised serious questions about the state of academia in this country and he was amazed that the thesis was awarded a master’s, let alone honours.

Mr Bolton said he did not hold neo-Nazi beliefs and had Maori and Jewish heritage in his family. He was secretary of the New Zealand arm of the National Front for only one year in 2004 and left because of the “neo-Nazi, racist element”.