It now survives on the internet only as a historical record of a long-faded controversy.

"Joel Hayward and his thesis, while being subjected to the full blast of [public] criticism some thought they deserved, should not have been subjected to what amounted to censure from the university. It had, after all, accepted Dr Hayward as a suitable candidate for a Master's degree, supervised his work, and accepted his examiners' assessment. To renege — to open the thesis to a second assessment — was to be seen as craven at worst and confused at best".

—Editorial, The Press, 3 September 2003.

I have spent the last decade or two living as an author, biographer, historian, senior academic, defence analyst, media pundit, and more (all usually at the same time). And I have, with God's grace, been quite successful in most things I have attempted. Certainly no-one has questioned my aptitude or the quality of my efforts and results. In fact I was, and am, respected in the artistic and professional circles mentioned above. Yet a small group of misguided souls did, a few years ago, launch a highly public attack on me within New Zealand. This website is my explanation of that wretched business. 

This small website isn't very biographical, I'm afraid. Despite some public recognition in New Zealand I am a very private man. But the site does contain several documents that I consider important to gaining a full understanding of the attempts made by those intolerant individuals and "thought police" to destroy my career and well-being.

My goal in establishing this site this year (2003) was not to participate in any politically motivated debates, especially the long-running and, in my experience, distasteful, international Holocaust revisionism/anti-Holocaust revisionism debate.

I have no interest in that or any other political debate. I am not a Holocaust denier. I do not like Holocaust denial. And I do not feel any need to tell people what is "true" and what is not, or what is "right" and what is not. People can make up their own minds, and I certainly don't mind if they disagree with any or all of the views I have ever expressed since my birth in 1964.

Prompted by two very misleading Listener articles, my aim in assembling the documents on this website was only to give any interested New Zealanders searching for information a more complete and less polemical picture of one local free-speech "crisis" and its savage but now-finished fallout. That crisis was one of this small and insular nation's most needless, vitriolic and public academic controversies: "The Canterbury Affair".

This site reflects my own "take" on events, and contains materials that I think will help to bring transparency to what has been a rather murky business. Readers wanting another perspective are encouraged to obtain from their libraries back issues of The New Zealand Jewish Chronicle. I can't find a website for the Chronicle, otherwise I'd post a link.

Please wander through this material, and contact me if you have corrections, questions or something (polite) to say.

Thank you.

-- Dr Joel Hayward

2003

Click here to buy Dr Joel Hayward's successful new book

For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War

Please note: these webpages are my copyrighted property. I did not, do not, and will not give permission for any of my pages or their particular content to appear on any other individual's or organisation's website(s). If any of my material appears elsewhere it has not been copied or placed there with my permission.