Current Issues - 2001

September 2001

Airbrushed From History

The name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, George Cross may be enshrined in the title deeds of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 but clearly that is going to be the only official place the name will ever be seen. And now to complete our airbrushing from history Force Management proposes a "clean walls policy" so that no one, and especially we must mean republicans, dare be offended by any sign or momento indicating that the RUC ever existed.

The scope for display, for personalising one's working conditions by hanging the pictures of RUC sports teams, visits in uniform to and from other police forces, photographs of colleagues with whom you have served is to be so limited that a regulatory ban will exist. As a concession there might possibly be permitted one only photograph of murdered colleagues provided it is "suitably framed".

This Federation has always supported the argument for a neutral working environment in so far as displays or behaviour which would offend individuals or groups, on the basis of gender, religion, martial status, political opinion, race, disability, sexual orientation, personal characteristics and/or their social /economic/ welfare background should be strictly prohibited. But we are being patronised with this new Neutral Working Environment policy and worse still, we are being asked to consign everything associated with the RUC and HM forces to the museum along with our feelings of personal and professional pride of having served in the RUC.

Will we be allowed to wear RUC cuff links working in plain clothes; what about the RUC GC tie? Will one of our new colleagues take offence at the sight of an emblem on a tie pin? Surely to goodness we are recruiting people of sufficient maturity and character that they will not look for undue insult at every opportunity. There is a balance to be struck here and at the moment the proposed clean walls policy is a whitewash of our history. Enough hurt has been done to this force and the wider police family already. If we are to be convinced that we are not being told to disown our past then we are entitled to see our continuity of service acknowledged even where it is simply the personal momentoes of hundreds of individual officers.