hyphenated police force

national | miscellaneous | news report

Friday April 04, 2003 17:33

by mark gallagher

Basically, just a skewed view of the latest outrage committed by the cops, and our esteemed minister for justice, against peaceful protesters.

ISN’T it wonderful that we live in such a powerful democracy that an elected representative can get harassed for representing the electorate’s opinion? At least, we now know the secret of becoming successful in Irish politics. Under no circumstances reflect public sentiment. Strange, but I am starting to understand how the mind of Michael McDowell works.
There has been a lot of angry words over the past few days, mainly heavy-handed. This is a lovely, hyphenated word. Heavy-handed. As we have it claw-hammered into our brains over the last 48 hours, it is devoid of meaning. It is one of those ambiguous words that leaves people uncertain of how exactly the cops handled the situation. Other than dragging a man away from his place of work(perhaps it was Joe Higgins’ wife who called the riot squad in, because day and night, he is in that Dail.)
Groans can be heard across the land, people heave their one eyebrow skywards and sigh. Another cut off the Guards. And them just doing their job. I know, I know. They have a tough job to do. Nobody would like it out there, patrolling the streets, taking their lives in their hands.
Admittedly, Wednesday was a very dangerous situation. Dozens of men, built like brick-houses and dressed like Peter Weller in Robocop, against a bunch of hand-holding hippies in need of a good scrub and shave. Apparently it all went off when one dreadlocked protester threatened the guards with a piece of string. Definite provocation for a reaction. Batons were also called in when an out-of-tune guitar began a version of Redemption Song.
The tough job excuse is an interesting defence, isn’t it? Like you regularly see air traffic controllers smashing the skulls of aviation mechanics in an airport hangar because they have a hard job, or your local GP walking down the street, roughing up anyone who looks sideways at him. Tough job, y’know.
A cop friend of mine was recently lamenting the utter distrust people have in our police force. That they are all getting tarnished with one brush. And it’s all because of a few bad eggs. I love this argument, that the Guards are a cross-section of society and thus, there will be a portion of not-very-nice-people. What portion of bad eggs is too much? Are we supposed to accept a few cowboys in our police force because they are always going to be there. Maybe we should ask Sheena McMahon or John Carthy. No wait, we can’t.
The more worrying aspect of what transpired on Wednesday evening was the pre-mediation involved. I’m guessing here, but there must be some length of time to mobilise a riot squad. And they played the no numbers game again. Mikey McDowell said it was a logistical matter the next day. Right! RUC Riot Squads, which can hardly be held up as the most fair-minded force in Europe, always displayed numbers on their protective shields and helmets. As do the London Met Police squad. In this country, logistics always catches us out.
Whatever about Maths, they certainly don’t teach English no good down there in the jungles of Templemore. There is no dictionary definition of riot that encompasses a group of people standing around peacefully, which they are allowed to do under the enshrined constitutional law of freedom of the right to assembly and protest.
This protest, like Reclaim the Streets before it, was policed with the mentality, ‘there will be trouble and if not, we will make sure there is.’ In the eyes of the many decent souls in middle Ireland who ask serious moral questions about an entire family being killed at roadblocks, the anti-war movement would become associated with violence. In the eyes of the moral majority of Waterford and Roscommon, who feel enraged when watching busy marketplaces torched into liberation, to be anti-war was equated with being a trouble-maker.
Someone orchestrated an attempt to crush public sympathy for the anti-war movement. Someone staged a scene to quell the disquiet over a plane re-fuelling in Shannon before going to paralyse a nine-year-old Shia schoolgirl with little knowledge of this country or the outside world.
It must be said fair play to the Guards for Wednesday. While someone somewhere in our young nation got stabbed and became the latest statistic in the spiralling crime figures, dozens of guards were present to manhandle Joe Higgins. He does need to be locked up, especially when people are starting to listen to the nonsense spewing from his mouth. He needs to treated heavy-handedly, has to be dealt with by the hyphenated words. Behaviour needs to be hyphenated. Those administering justice in this country, those so intelligent that the only way they can win a debate is to call a fellow member of Parliament “a Trotskyite communist”, are fond of hyphenating things. They love the hyphen. They hyphenated last Wednesday again. And afterwards, grinned like a Cheshire cat.