An uncivilised report
From DAILY TELEGRAPH September 10th, 1999
CHRIS PATTEN, the ultimate "civilised Tory", has produced a report on policing
in Northern Ireland that tries to keep the enemies of civilised society
sweet. Mr Patten, so clear-sighted about the nature of political evil in
his capacity as Governor of Hong Kong, has proved much easier to bamboozle
in Ulster. He and his fellow commissioners have not delivered everything
that the fascistic republican movement had wanted, but their proposals owe
much to the Sinn Féin/IRA analysis of the "problem". This holds that the
RUC is irredeemably sectarian in its composition, ethos, culture and practices.
Instead of being rewarded for holding the thin, rifle-green line in the
face of tremendous adversity, the RUC is now effectively to be disbanded.
Even by the tawdry standards of late imperial retreat, this is a great betrayal.
The report is right on one count: it is not neutral between the RUC and
its terrorist critics. The hallmark of Patten is its pollyannish tone about
the enduring paramilitary threat, combined with hypercritical and sanctimonious
treatment of the RUC. Not only is it a crime against English prose (it is
replete with trendy management-speak about "service delivery" and "holistic"
approaches), but it actually employs language in such a way as to obfuscate
the truth. Consider the vexed question of why Roman Catholics do not join
the RUC. "We have noted before that the main problem facing policing has been the political divide between Protestants/ Unionists and Catholics/nationalists and the identification of the police with Unionism and the British state in the minds of many nationalists. This has undoubtedly had some effect on the rate of application to join the police from the Catholic/nationalist community, as has the active discouragement, sometimes including intimidation, which many potential recruits from that community have experienced." Rarely has an exercise in raw brutality been so euphemistically explained away. The real reason is that the IRA has sought to murder Catholic officers with
especial vigour, and often succeeded in doing so. "Active discouragement"
is about as Orwellian a phrase as the IRA's own term, "civil administration",
to describe its "punishment" beatings. This mindset leads to recommendations
that would effectively emasculate RUC Special Branch - a long-time objective
of Sinn Féin/IRA. The Patten report accepts many of the critics' arguments
about its size and its allegedly "elitist" ethos. It not only recommends
a reduction in numbers, but also suggests that personnel be rotated out
of the Branch every five years. But what makes for "best practice" in the
private sector is quite inapplicable in this context. Many Special Branch
handlers become effective only after three to five years in the job: informers
within terrorist groups like to deal with the same face for years to build
up a bond of trust. Patten's recommendation breaks that bond - with potentially
lethal consequences. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, himself the ultimate "civilised copper", needs to show more courage in standing up to bien-pensant opinion. It would put an ignominious cap on his career if he succumbed to this nonsense, though he will undoubtedly come under pressure from elements in government to do so. The proposals for Special Branch are symptomatic of one of the
key themes running through Patten: that the force (sorry, "service") must
"demilitarise" itself in order to become more "acceptable" to "the community" The other crucial aspect of making the force more "acceptable" is to erase
all aspects of its Britishness. Some will say that it is not worth "dying in the last ditch" for such signs and symbols as the name and the cap badge.
These arguments neglect the practical consequences that flow from the destruction
of the ethos of any organisation. For the RUC is a police force like no
other. It still faces a threat from people who claim to be "fighting the war". Those who face extra levels of threat are entitled to especial tokens of esteem - the Royal Charter, the rifle-green uniform and passing-out parades - to sustain morale and to give a sense of purpose. Deprive a man of his standard and you deprive him of his institutional raison d'etre. Consider
the words of Isaiah X, 18 concerning the onset of despondency: "They shall be as when a standardbearer fainteth". Likewise, the Saxons did not lose
hope at Hastings when Harold was killed, but when the colours were lost.
So it goes with the RUC. If signs and symbols do not matter, why remove
them? All of this is designed to give nationalists and republicans "ownership" of policing. |
