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Martin
Salter, a British Labour MP, a couple of years past
posed the question, 'what on earth has happened to
the early 1970 radicals like myself who have found
themselves in Parliament 25 years later. Have we sold
out - or simply grown up?' An interesting question,
and one that should be considered by any 1970s radical
considering embracing all the things their radicalism
once pitted them against. But the force of the question
was blunted by the answer it only half sought to disguise.
Suggesting a maturation attained by ‘simply growing
up’ is yet another self-justificatory discourse
aimed at alienating alternative voices by ascribing
to them the characteristics of infantilism. Obliterate
one’s own egregious metamorphosis, not by explanation,
but by silencing those who would flag it up. And when
backs are against the wall what more useful a weapon
to impose silence than the police?
The
problem of policing in any society has not yet been
solved by those eager to add their number to the ‘thin
blue line.’ Even at its most adventurous, it
is not easy to conceive of an entryism that manages
to maintain at the centre of its vision a problematisation
of the police as distinct from the problem of policing.
There is more to suggest that regardless of the initial
motives of the radicals determined to hold the police
to account, little time passes before the power of
the policing institution comes to inscribe itself
in the being of those inside it. The individual exchanges
his or her own identity for an institutional one.
They may start out sporting their new institutional
dimension only as a mask, but invariably the mask
absorbs and constitutes the face. Their discourse
becomes little other than a mere word in a wider sentence.
It is only defensible to themselves and intelligible
to others when situated within a longer chain. The
institutional sentence, not the individual word, is
the found upon which meaning is based. Despite the
optimism of the Pollyannas that any chain is only
as strong as its weakest link, the chain can easily
dispense with the link if it doesn’t fit - the
link is nothing without the chain, hooked on it as
it is. Eventually, the poachers become gamekeepers;
their energy expended in protecting the police against
the policed.
But
no amount of ducking and diving evades that thorny
old question which is as old as society itself - who
guards the guards; who shall police the police? If
those most opposed to the police join them, then in
a bid to minimise criticism of their decision they
shall seek to minimise criticism of the police - ‘they
are alright now because we are part of it.’ So
when Martin McGuinness says that Sinn Fein is ‘very
determined to bring about the kind of change which
would encourage young nationalists to step out of
their front doors with their uniforms on, with their
chests out and their heads held high,’ the doubt
that gnaws at the mind is who then is going to hold
these people to account? There are republicans who
have stated that although they served jail time alongside
Gerry Kelly, they fear that if were to become Minister
for Justice he would revoke their licenses and return
them to prison. That he may never is hardly the point
– people believe it and envisage no safeguards
against it. They see no sign of autonomous republican
grassroots activism that would stand up to leadership
rightism. Past practice does not augur well for future
behaviour. The former Sinn Fein Health Minister closed
down hospitals and cut back on acute health services
not because she was a Thatcherite ideologue but because
she opted to take up a position, which once occupied,
allowed for no other option. Yet there was no public
Sinn Fein criticism of her. Is it to be the same with
policing?
The
British state is at ease with its position in Ireland.
There is no serious threat to it. It no longer requires
the type of police force once deemed essential to
meet the challenge of subversion. The only issue confronting
it in relation to policing is the potential fall out
from inquiries that don’t do what they are supposed
to do and end up highlighting past policing malpractice.
At most this embarrasses the government of the day
but will hardly cause it to short circuit. The faulty
wiring was installed on another’s watch.
Yet, it is clear that the British state in spite of
Patten has done little to tackle the fact that the
police remain a problem. On three separate occasions
the PSNI have been found making concerted attempts
to subvert forensic science practices for the purpose
of framing people in the courts. A leading forensic
scientist, Ann Irwin, has complained that police officers
had for many years attempted to coerce forensic scientists
into tampering with forensic evidence. How many people
are now serving sentences as a result of PSNI contaminated
forensic evidence? Furthermore, former CID sergeant
Johnston Brown, has claimed that the police have used
"serial killers" as informants and have
ensured that no prosecutions were brought against
them. Many of these people populate loyalist organisations
and will not be brought to book for the crimes they
perpetrate on those they regard as nationalists or
unfortunate members of their 'own' community.
Last
month a member of Ogra Shinn Féin was arrested
by the PSNI and charged with taking a photograph of
a protest by his colleagues at Omagh barracks. Pat
Doherty claimed that it was an act of political policing
carried out by ‘heavily armed PSNI thugs.’
It seems to be an attempt by the force to do as they
attempted with the Blanket in July of this year -
suppress and obstruct news coverage of events that
is not in tandem with their own account. Doherty,
unfortunately, learned nothing from Pastor Martin
Niemoller, otherwise he would have spoken out earlier
before they came for him or his party. A sign of things
to come even with a nationalist justice minister.
On message nationalists will be protected, the cops
can take the hindmost.
The
PSNI pose a serious threat to civil liberties. Because
the conflict is no longer as intense, the imperative
to behave as it did before its name change is not
as striking. But it retains from the days of old what
functions, illegal and otherwise, it needs to repress.
The forces needed to hold policing to account are
diminishing by the day. Society without an opposition
is a totalitarian nightmare.
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