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The
political discourse as of late has pulsated with reference
to policing. Much of it is based on anticipation that
Sinn Fein will join the structure of the RUC. One
Sinn Fein official told the Irish Times the
deal was ‘done and dusted.’ No doubt it
is. A member of the Republican Movement who is resolutely
against Sinn Fein joining the RUC recently referred
to two of the party's perennial picket line participants
who have been spending their Saturdays standing on
the Falls Road with posters proclaiming opposition
to the PSNI. "What," he asked, "are
they going to do when Gerry Kelly drives down some
day, gets out of his land rover and tells them to
move on or he'll book them?" My response: "Move
on, I suppose, and tell us it is only tactical and
then accuse us of failing to grasp the revolutionary
logic inherent in mere surface conservative stances."
The point is both of us accept that this is the only
direction in which Sinn Fein and its 'undefeated army'
is going. Why an 'undefeated army' would want to join
the RUC is rarely broached. Moreover, why an 'undefeated
army' would continuously feel the need to point out
to all and sundry that it was an 'undefeated army'
seems not to puzzle only those who swallow the myth
that it was undefeated. They protest too much.
The
decision to become part of the structure of the RUC
was taken a long time ago — just as every other
decision relating to the peace process was. Once Chris
Patten gave cover for the Pattenistas to emerge from
within the ranks of the Sinn Fein leadership it was
only a matter of time before that cover grew more
translucent. Only the faithful blind either failed
or refused to see what was happening in front of their
very eyes. When Patten as base line became Patten
as plateau, when the RUC became the RUC/PSNI, then
PSNI, when the problem became not the RUC but the
unreconstructed elements within the RUC, when Ronnie
Flanagan as head of the force rather than the force
per se came to be defined as a sticking point,
when Special Branch - now ‘a force within a force’
rather than the force it was within - was presented
as the major blockage, the writing was on the wall
and it did not spell 'd-i-s-b-a-n-d-m-e-n-t.
There
will be no ideological resistance within the republican
family to what is happening. The siblings have been
quite happy to stand idly by while Big Brother No
1 took it upon himself to put to bed every other tenet
of Provisional republicanism so there is no reason
for sections of the family to stand up, proclaim their
ideological sensibilities mortally offended and then
refuse to acquiesce. In this sense it is most definitely
not a dysfunctional family in which the sons and daughters
rebel against Big Brother No 1. Very few opt to become
black sheep. Obedience paralyses any sense of dissent.
But
how people see things in the world depends to a large
extent on whose ox is gored. And it is plausible to
speculate on what might happen when Gerry Kelly, Alan
McQuillan, Mitchel McLaughlin, and Hugh Orde metaphorically
come kicking in the doors of those South Armagh traders
who have for decades turned their pound and kept the
wolves from the door by making intelligent economic
use of the border. And Sinn Fein as part of the structure
of the RUC will hardly push for legislation aimed
at legalising illicit cross border activity; the reverse
in fact - they will be compelled to support a state
assault on such activity.
And
in circumstances where people whose way of life is
eroded and criminalised it is impossible to rule out
some disquiet. After all, while the war effort of
South Armagh might have achieved little in terms of
securing republican objectives - due to the Sinn Fein
leadership trading in the efforts of activists for
little that furthered republicanism or benefited South
Armagh - it did carve out a space for people to continue
their lives doing as they always had. It helped create
a buffer against unwanted state incursion into the
economic life of border communities. And there must
exist an awareness that the war in South Armagh -
so brilliantly described by Toby Harnden in his Bandit
Country - was not fought with such tenacity and
military expertise so that the people of the area
could be disinvested of their daily bread and butter
in order to advance the political careers of Sinn
Fein politicians in the cities. One hardly imagines
those who spent over two decades instilling fear into
the heart of the British establishment did so for
the purpose of electing a MLA who the leadership will
expect to function as a glove puppet for Belfast politicians
and explain to the communities of South Armagh that
they need to be effectively policed.
If
there is to be any hostile response to the Sinn Fein
leadership sounding the bells summoning people to the
RUC, it will come from those for whom the bells toll.
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