A renowned professor has cancelled a lecture at the National Library of New Zealand after staff demanded he remove a historical source that they feared could be seen to endorse British colonialism.
Paul Moon, a professor of history at Auckland University of Technology, was set to give the lecture next February on British policy leading up to the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) with Māori leaders in 1840 – a subject he’s been researching for three decades.
The National Library asked him to provide a summary of his talk and when he did, a staff member got in touch asking him to delete a quote from John Seeley’s 1883 work The Expansion of England, which famously states that Britain had “conquered half the world in a fit of absence of mind”.
Seeley was referring to the haphazard nature of British foreign policy in the 18th and 19th centuries – which Prof Moon believes was clearly demonstrated by the chaotic and piecemeal colonisation of New Zealand.
Prof Moon told the Mail that Seeley’s remark encapsulated this process. “I thought it was quite useful – it’s been used by many historians,” he said. “There was absolutely nothing controversial about what I was going to say. There’s nothing particularly new about it or radical.”
But according to the librarian who emailed Prof Moon, it “could be seen as us agreeing with Britain conquering the world”.
“Personally, I saw nothing wrong with the quote,” the email continued, “but I’m passing on the director’s wish to have it taken out. Hopefully, this can be easily done.”
The library had earlier taken exception to Prof Moon’s use of the term “whakapapa” – the Māori word for genealogy – in the talk and asked him to remove it, which he reluctantly did. No reason was given and Prof Moon expressed his surprise, given that incorporating Māori terms was “one of the things we’re encouraged to do”.
But when the library then asked him to delete Seeley’s words, he cancelled his lecture as a matter of principle. To interpret the quote as being supportive of British colonisation was, he said, an “extraordinarily ill-informed view. But what arguably makes the matter worse are the attempts at controlling what is said or written by someone the library has invited as a speaker.
“Given these efforts by the library to compel aspects of my speech, I had no option but to cancel my flights and my appearance in Wellington in February.
“The easiest thing for me to do would be to say, ‘OK, I’ll bow to your request, and I’ll censor myself and the people won’t get the full story, because it’s what the library wants.’”
Prof Moon added that he’s been giving talks for decades – including at more than a dozen marae (Māori meeting grounds) this year – and he has never before been asked to remove material.
The Director of Public Engagement at the National Library, Alison McIntyre, claimed the institution was “proud to host a variety of speakers on various topics, through its ‘E oho! Waitangi’ [literally ‘Arise! Waitangi’] series and others”.
“We are disappointed Mr [sic] Moon has cancelled his talk, and would welcome him to present at National Library again in the future if he chooses.”
Prof Moon has taught at Auckland University of Technology since 1993, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society at University College London. He has written dozens of books, many of them on the Treaty of Waitangi and early Crown rule in New Zealand, for several major international publishers.
Full story here.
