Polish mercenaries not welcome

by Dan Mc Turk Thu May 03, 2007 10:05 daily_dan at hotmail dot com

Polish mercenaries in the PSNI? What a splendid idea! Just think, personnel who have no knowledge of the Troubles, who have no personal or group ax to grind, no childhood steeped in the politics of hating and fearing your neighbours. What a marvellous idea!

And maybe folk in the North would have to state the facts of any given situation in simple clear English (or Polish), without wrapping everything in multiple layers of sophistry, historical grudges, and "They're getting more than We are" rhetoric.

I propose that no-one in future be allowed to join the PSNI in future unless ;

a) They can prove back to four generations that they have no family, biological, or genetic links with anyone on the island of Ireland.

b) They sit an exam in Irish history, where a score of zero, confirming an absolute ignorance of the subject, shall be the only acceptable score.

Here's to the future, stop living in the past.

Dan

by Mik Wilde Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:22

Just wondering if the Irish emigrants who ended up in America over the last 200 years and took over the police forces over there playing a leading part in turning those organizations into the racist bodies they are today could be considered mercenaries or are the just racists??

Sorry, did not mean to be flippant but surely this whole notion a police force or any organization which has to be comprised of a certain percentage of legally acceptable ethnic groups or enshrines racism into the constitution of wherever it is been practiced.

On another note would you really trust anyone who wanted to join a police force no matter how they choose to believe in the invisible man in the sky?

by Wrong Fri Feb 02, 2007 19:13

You would be wrong. They are to be classified as Catholics for the purposes of the RUC's sectarian headcount.

And no, it is not a bit much to be calling them mercenaries, for they are mercenaries.

by Sally - Me Tue Jan 30, 2007 23:44

I'm sorry, but my understanding was that the Poles joining the PSNI were not actually going to be counted as the Catholic quota - and that the Catholic quota meant locals. Am I missing something here?

Regardless, I find it a bit much to call them mercenaries. It's tribal thinking.

by iosaf Tue Jan 30, 2007 22:05

This thread is also happing on "politics.ie" ( www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?p=523093&sid=38f6ca51bde1864009e51adac01a33c3 ) with the exact same name. A name let us be honest which is filled with grace, humour and devoid (characteristically) of any rancour. = "good old rsf ".

But me being me, I felt an "accuracy" moment come on. How long has it been (thought I) since we have properly spoken about polish mercenaries. The answer is simple now but was indeed a sad shocking story of jingoistic pride & historical revisionism once.
The Polish mercenaries are held to be the Lisowczycy, who as a regiment of irregular of light cavalry in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did their bit for swashbuckling, rapine & loot just about the same time as the mercenary boyos from Ireland we read about on the sort of sites RSF like. I am of course referring to the ever relevant 17th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisowczycy

I am (of course) disappointed in the level of response to this titbit of sectarian news. We ought not be surprised that catholic communities are being approached to make up the shortfall of kathurlick recruits to the PSNI. But we on the left ought be oiling our clever cogs thinking - "thus how will the psychological profile of integrating migrants alter"? Are we to suggest that other migrant (dare say ethnic) groups of protestant or non-christian (or even God.s loyalist opposition the atheists) will now find it harder to get a job?

I suggest a Nigerian will be less welcome than Pole, and a Lithuanian lutheran descended from the Lisowczycy also be snubbed. Until of course the PSNI needs to think about community balance in other ways - & realises that the needs of "the occupied six counties" chinese community have been left out of the "whose God have ye?" fudge.

That said - Redjades comment above is very good & interesting.

by Westell Tue Jan 30, 2007 03:02

"In an UN-precedented move, Sinn Fein voted overwhelmingly Sunday to back the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), a key obstacle to restoring power-sharing in Belfast four years after it was suspended.

Following up on the vote, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said in Belfast Monday that his party will urge Catholics to work with chief constable Sir Hugh Orde's officers to remove criminals from the streets.

"Let there be no doubt about this," Adams said.

Blair also urged the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to fulfill its pledge to share power with Sinn Fein.

The DUP's firebrand leader Ian Paisley said Sinn Fein has made progress, but they still had to deliver. "It is a step along the way, but it is not the payout that is expected of them."

He reiterated his view that elections would go ahead on March 7 for a revived Northern Ireland Assembly to convene on March 26.

That target date was set under a deal struck in November between Protestants, who mostly back retaining links with Britain, and Catholics, who largely favour union with the Republic of Ireland.

Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness hailed Sunday's vote -- backed by over 90 percent in a show of hands at a special party conference in Dublin -- as "hugely significant" for hopes of a power-sharing deal.

McGuinness said he expects Sinn Fein's executive council to "move forward decisively" on policing following the vote, adding that there was now a "mighty responsibility" on Ahern and Blair to "deliver the DUP."

The two are also due to publish a special report this week by the Independent Monitoring Commission, which oversees disarmament of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), of which Sinn Fein is the political wing.

The promise of self-rule in Northern Ireland was among the main planks of the 1998 peace deal to largely end three decades of sectarian violence known as "the Troubles."

More than 3,500 people died, many at the hands of the IRA.

Devolved government was suspended in 2002 after allegations of an IRA spy ring at Stormont, the Belfast seat of administration, and Northern Ireland has been back under direct rule from London ever since.

Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain welcomed Sunday's vote -- but warned that he will only go ahead and call elections if both Sinn Fein and the DUP deliver on their promises.

"There now needs to be delivery of practical co-operation with the police by Sinn Fein and delivery on practical power-sharing by the DUP," he said.

"Provided these two are in place, I think we can move towards an election on March 7, with power-sharing and devolution on March 26," he said.

"I don't want the voters of Northern Ireland to trudge down to polling stations in a pointless exercise. The point of having an election on March 7 is to trigger a power-sharing executive on March 26.

"We can't have another election to an assembly that might not exist."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070129/wl_uk_afp/irelandn...itain

by redjade Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:21

googling isn't hard. this is an interesting and important story - exposes many interesting aspects of british imperialism, the hypocrisy of the EU's 'on paper' concepts of 'equality' and so on. It's also a tactic straight out of a John Sayles movie - if you ever saw the flick Matewan, you might know what I mean. 'Opportunities' like this for Immigrant labour are designed to divide and conquer.

Why not write some original material for indymedia on this, instead of linking self-referentially to one's own agitprop?

Poles help Ulster police to meet quota of Catholics
Under the policing reforms, the PSNI must recruit Catholics and non-Catholics equally, a restriction strongly disliked by Unionists because it leads to the rejection of able and willing Protestant candidates.

But a combination of Republican intimidation and the lingering suspicion among Catholics that the PSNI remains a Protestant police force has ensured that its make-up is still disproportionately Protestant. Only 21 per cent of its officers are Catholic.

The PSNI advertised in Polish publications north and south of the border to encourage more of the estimated 30,000 Poles in Northern Ireland into their ranks. A further 150,000 live south of the border, where the Irish police are training Polish recruits.

The charm offensive was not the PSNI’s first overture to the Poles....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2543634,00.html

... .. ...

Almost 1000 Poles apply to PSNI
Almost 1,000 Polish people applied to join the Police Service of Northern Ireland in its latest recruitment drive.

The police have confirmed that 968 of a total of more than 7,700 applications last November were from Poles - more than 12%.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6251117.stm

.. ... ..

Ireland from a Polish perspective
It is a good opportunity for many of Polish emigrants, and former policemen to be still in the service and to earn at least 4 times more than in Poland. The need to employ Poles to the police service is quite obvious due to growing number of our community in Northern Ireland (which is now estimated to be about 30 thousands). The same need exist in the Republic, but I am a little bit afraid about that idea in the Northern Ireland.

Due to the agreement there must be an equal number of protestants and catholics in the PSNI, but it is far to be done at present. There is many reasons of that, i.e. there is a problem with MI5 involvement in PSNI and I guess there can be still lack of confidence to the police among the catholic communities and their experiences with RUC. For the British and Northern Ireland authorities employment of huge number of Poles can be a solution. They can say that everything goes fine, due to the growing number of catholics in the service. But Poles are a foreign element, not linked to the problems, memories and sensitives of the local catholic communities. In my opinion they can’t be a good representatives of the Irish catholics in the North and they probably won’t be a regarded by them as let me say “our people”.

http://www.drakkart.com/eire2/2007/01/14/polish-policem...psni/

.. ... ..

Matewan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093509/

by me Sun Jan 28, 2007 19:39

statement at http://www.rsfcork.com/currentnews.htm

by Richard Isible Sun Jan 28, 2007 17:08

If so then it's worth posting it here to demonstrate what you're asserting.

by jj o kelly Sun Jan 28, 2007 02:34

somebody's clearly fucking about. This has been posted editing out over half the statement, part of which included a rather important sentence or two. Obvious anti-republican elements at work.