History Cuts
Following my last post a week ago responding to news that the Ministry for Culture and Heritage had confirmed the axing of most historian roles at the ministry, with the future of important websites such as Te Ara and NZ History left in grave jeopardy, a number of media stories have delved further into the alarming implications of this move in terms of the ability to learn about our history.
On Tuesday Stuff ran an interview with me following up on my comments that what was happening at MCH, when considered alongside a range of other concerning developments, collectively amounted to what was, in effect, a war on history. I noted there that the move away from content creation was extremely short-sighted. While the ministry might be keen to position itself as purely a policy shop, for large numbers of New Zealanders the websites, along with the ministry’s role in helping support history teaching in schools through its various education programmes, would be the most valuable part of what it does.
And as I also said in that piece, with the websites it hosts, it is not simply a matter of putting content up and then ignoring it. That content needs to be constantly updated and revised – including, for example, when a prominent New Zealander dies and a new biography of them is required or maybe when a new book revises our understanding of a particular topic.
As former Chief Historian and Te Ara editor Jock Phillips noted in an episode of The Detail that appeared yesterday, without staff to maintain and update sites like Te Ara and NZ History ‘they will sort of go into cold storage, and what that means is that eventually they wither and die because a website that's not kept up is eventually a website that does die’.
Earlier in the week I had said I was sure those websites got ‘massive traffic’ and Phillips confirmed this, noting that Te Ara got four million unique users per year and NZ History over 3 million, with more than 20 million page views each year between them. Probably a few more people than read the policy papers the ministry is keen to focus exclusively on in the future.
Jock Phillips also spoke about this issue on RNZ’s Night programme. And finally, yesterday I joined Gerard Otto’s popular podcast for a wide-ranging conversation that covered the MCH cuts, removing humanities research from the Marsden Fund, the importance of knowing our history and some discussion as to my own work on the New Zealand Wars. Have a watch here.
None of this is likely to change what is happening at MCH at the moment. But the attacks on our cultural heritage, and on our ability to know who we are and where we come from, require a strong response if we are to reverse this situation in the future.
Aku mihi
Vincent O’Malley