Paul Moon: Censorship alive and well and living in NZ

Paul Moon writing in the New Zealand Herald today, Friday 29 August, 2008.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Nazis' book-burning, a crude pogrom against any knowledge or ideas that the German Government considered ideologically unacceptable in 1933.

Of course, all the condemned literature outlived the Nazi regime, but the wretched spectre of books being tossed on to blazing pyres remains one of the unforgettable images of that period.

The physical destruction of books now seems to belong to another, much less enlightened age, but not so the censorial urges that led to the practice. I have experienced this first-hand in the past few weeks since the release of my book This Horrid Practice, which explores traditional Maori cannibalism.

I recall a fellow academic approaching me when I started writing the book and warning me that I was putting my career in jeopardy by tackling this subject. At first, I dismissed the caution, but when others began making similar comments, I came around to the view that I would be risking my integrity as a historian by being bullied into silence.

Then the attacks came, and in several forms. I am sure many of the people who have complained about the book have yet to read it, but this has not stopped them rushing to judgment and making all sorts of shrill accusations about its contents.
Read Paul's full piece at the NZ Herald online.