Policing
History: The Official Discourse and Organizational Memory of the Royal Ulster
Constabulary
by Aogan Mulcahy
Questions of history are integral to processes of conflict resolution and
political transition. Political reconciliation is frequently viewed to require
some form of historical 'audit' whereby participants (victims and/or protagonists)
have an opportunity to commit their experiences to a 'new' and 'comprehensive'
history of the conflict: for grievances to be aired, and experiences (so
often denied or silenced) acknowledged (Cohen 1993: Rolston 1996) Such processes
provide an opportunity for reflection, not only on the actions of others,
but on one's own role. As Boyarin (1994:17) notes though, official histories
can sustain themselves 'even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the
contrary' because 'they also have the function of convincing the dominant
groups of its own legitimacy and collective identity'. The soothing history
which forms the core of the RUC's official discourse does indeed support
its claims of legitimacy, but it also undermines the momentum towards reflexivity
that is so central to the development of open dialogue and trust that underpins
processes of conflict resolution. Thus, the very nature of official discourse
does indeed support its claims of legitimacy, but it also undermines the
momentum towards reflexivity that is so central to the development of open
dialogue and trust that underpins processes of conflict resolution. Thus,
the very nature of official discourse is the greatest impediment it faces
in terms of attracting the support of other key constituencies of opinion..
By promoting these organisations memories as the history of policing in
Northern Ireland official discourse effectively silences alternative accounts
and diminishes the 'consent' of those adhering to such accounts to an irrelevancy.
Power relations are mediated through such discursive strategies of recognition
and non-recognition, that assert one's own legitimacy while refuting or
curtailing the legitimacy claims of others. Memory and amnesia are central
to this process. Their deployment functions strategically to plot reality,
set its limits, and circumscribe the imagination within horizons of understanding,
thereby generating a historical presence for some and absence for others.
Memmi (1965) suggests that disputes over history are intrinsically related
to broader conflicts over the need to legitimise domination. He argues that
domination immediately implicates the 'victor' in an unending struggle to
legitimise those power relations and that strategies to attain that goal
often focus on the construction (and denial) of history
(T)o possess victory completely he needs to absolve himself or it and the
conditions under which it was attained. This explains his strenuous insistence,
strange for a victor, on apparently futile matters. He endeavours to falsify
history, he rewrites laws, he would extinguish memories-anything to succeed
in transforming his usurpation into legitimacy. (p52)
Yet if struggles over history are essentially struggles over power, it is
important to recognise that those struggles are contemporary ones. History
'lingers' because of the present-day political salience of remembering and
forgetting. The organisational memories of policing that I have discussed
here do not constitute history as an assemblage of 'old' and faded events,
but rather history as part of the present a means of understanding and constituting
contemporary reality. The political salience of official 9and unofficial)
histories is that they function as a means to situate oneself and others
within the present. They are a means of asserting what should happen in
policing on the basis of claims over what has happened in policing. As such,
memories and histories direct our attention not to the past 'but to the
past-present relation.'
It is because 'the past' has this living active existence in the present
that it matters so much politically. As 'the past' - dead gone or only subsumed
in the present - it matters much less (popular memory group 1998: 77-8 Original
Emphasis).
In this way, past and present simultaneously co-exist and can be understood
as markers of meaning rather than as points in time. Indeed, the political
consequences of the organisational memories celebrated with official discourse
demonstrate that the ongoing debate about policing in Northern Ireland is
as much about the RUC's past as its future. To pretend otherwise, by characterising
historical controversies as non events, is to further contribute to an unreflexivity
that ultimately can contribute little to the development of a fair and equitable
mode of policing with the potential to garner the respect and support of
all of the diverse communities in Northern Ireland. |
