Thursday, January 11, 2007
1000 Poles want to join the PSNI…
It seems policing is a number one desireable job amongst Polish immigrants. According to the BBC, “968 of a total of more than 7,700 applications last November were from Poles - more than 12%”. Thanks to Robert for the heads up!
Mick Fealty @ 01:44 PM
Here is the relevant Act. Section 46 gives you what you need to know.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00032--g.htm#46
(8) In subsections (1), (4) and (5) “treated as Roman Catholic” means treated by the Chief Constable in accordance with the Monitoring Regulations as belonging to the Roman Catholic community in Northern Ireland.
(5) In making appointments to relevant posts in the police support staff under subsection (3) of section 4 on any occasion, the Chief Constable (acting by virtue of subsection (5) of that section) shall appoint from the pool of qualified applicants formed for that purpose by virtue of section 44(6) an even number of persons of whom-
(a) one half shall be persons who are treated as Roman Catholic; and
(b) one half shall be persons who are not so treated.Posted by on Jan 11, 2007 @ 10:48 PMThanks Miss Fitz.
In other words these Poles are indeed put in the 50% with the NI protestants. So that it’s now even harder for NI protestants to get a job in the PSNI as the extent of the discrimination is increasing.
Further, the Poles (and other minority groups) are being discriminated against as a result of the rule, because they are not Irish Catholic.
This 50%-50% quota thing is getting unsustainable.
Posted by on Jan 11, 2007 @ 11:10 PMeveryone relax.there will be a few token poles who,ll pose with the politicos for “look how far we,ve come we,re so multicultural photo ops”, will pretend be looking out for polish community and will keep an eye on polish criminal element and that will be it.
Posted by on Jan 11, 2007 @ 11:25 PM“This 50%-50% quota thing is getting unsustainable.”
No, it’s really not until the force is representative.
Posted by on Jan 11, 2007 @ 11:26 PMditto chinese and african cops
Posted by on Jan 11, 2007 @ 11:27 PMHarry
“I too was an emigrant. When I emigrated I didn’t.............”
Why don’t all you emigrants bugger off back to where you went to?
Posted by on Jan 11, 2007 @ 11:43 PMSays a lot about community policing if the officers don’t even come from the community,and have not been here long enough to integrate in to either community, it’s up the f**king left. If they speak broken english its even worse, and most likely won’t be able to prepare a report, or have any knowledge of the law above whats necessary to get into the job. Of course when their homes are set on fire blah blah all will shout racism, even tho that is traditionally how we treat the police.
A comedy show.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:23 AMHarry writes of how Ireland was priest-ridden and is now corrupt. He speaks of Ireland as a whore. Then he complains about how the British frame Ireland as backward and ignorant - though he seems to be giving himself carte blanche to do just that.
He doesn’t want to be policed by “outsiders”, as it would be humiliating for him, and is a job he deems inappropriate for them, apparently the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong in Northern Ireland is contingent on birthright or long years of residence there, and not on any principles of law.Hmm…
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:45 AMI know I shouldn’t feed trolls, especially racist ones, but this guy ... dear me.
“The old ‘xenophobia’ diatribe against those who actually investigate what these things mean”
Harry, you don’t sound like you’ve actually investigated anything in a very long time.
“I come from a liberal background and always considered myself a liberal in these things.”
LOL
This ‘post-nationalism’ works, as I have pointed out, always in favour of british nationalism and always in the effort ot attenuate irish nationalism. ”
Firstly, you haven’t pointed out anything - you have made a baseless claim. More importantly, surely “post-nationalism,” if that even has anything whatsoever to do with this, wouldn’t see either British or Irish nationalism and therefore would be working for or against neither. A GCSE politics student could tell you that.
“Irish nationalsim is the big ‘No No, because apparently being 85% of the population of the island is inconvenient to british interests and so must be represented as backward and threatening. ”
If anyone on this island is portrayed as backward (by the real media anyway, leaving Hollywood out of this) it’s nobody in the Republic.
“This is about power, about structures of power, about feeling ownership of your society and confidence in asserting that.”
Wrong. This is about law and order and community safety - that includes the Polish community.
“It is about those who seek to push through ‘post-nationalist’ realities for british nationalist reasons. ”
See above. Maybe you should take that GCSE politics course.
“It is about a nation which has nebver had a chance to be fully a nation being pushed somewhere else psychologically and sociologically before it ever has a chance to be a nation again.”
Emotive, sentimental inaccurate bullshit which doesn’t need a response besides the pool of vomit that’s just appeared on my floor.
“The british have gone furthest in recruitment of ethnic minorites into their police forces. It is therefore, out of all of europe, the british example (along with the american) we are being asked to follow. There is no reason why we should do so.”
So the UK has one of the best records on integrating the new migrants into the structures of the state? Excellent news.
“Polish people walking into this situtaion to become police officers are asking for trouble.”
Catholics moving into Protestant areas are asking to be burned out, aren’t they?
“Stopping an irish person on the street and demanding information off them as a foreigner with a gun strapped to your side is offensive and depowering for the host community.”
I don’t know about you but I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped on the street by the cops, but I wouldn’t have a problem with it regardless of who they were if they’re doing their job.
“Those who deny these realities are choosing a future that is less interesting and more depowered than is possible.”
Realities; I’m not sure that term can be applied to anything you’ve said.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 01:07 AMActually I have some sympathy for Harry’s position even if he does get a bit overwrought. If as a native you are part of a group which rejects the current policing structure then it follows logically that foreigners being brought in to bolster that policing structure is unacceptable.
However the way he frames his argument reminds me of watching riots in Derry in my youth, when the army snatch squads grabbed a couple of yobbos and gave them their well desreved hiding there was much tut-tutting among the older folk about British brutality, but if one of the squaddies giving “our boys” a good thumping happened to be black well, the outrage went off the meter.
“Fuckin’ n!gger cunt coming over here and beating up our poor wee fellas, fuckin’ black bastard only out of the jungle himself!” well, no need to continue, you get the picture. Offensive xenophobia is never far under the surface of Irish nationalism.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 01:57 AM“In this case it would seem a bunch of Poles have arrived recently and fancy setting themselves up as plenipotentiaries of a long-disputed power.â€
So a bunch of Poles were sitting in a pub in Belfast discussing employment prospects and one of them pipes up “I know, let’s set ourselves up as defenders of a Protestant monarch.�
Seriously Harry, the next time the joint comes round your way, take a drag.
“European culture†is not something from a period movie. Rather, it’s a thing that evolves as we Europeans grow closer together.
Indeed, the mainland will have a lot to learn from the European Isles about police integration
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 07:01 AMThe Poles come under the 50:50 recruitment as they are required to declare themselves as Catholic, Protestant or other. the figures of the no of applicants is known as these people responded to adds in Polish papers. Not known how many from other countries, including Lithuania, Bulgaria, etc… The one interesting thing is that there are officers from Brazil, Iran, New Zealand and France already in PSNI.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 08:04 AMI’m a university lecturer who’s worked all over the world this past ten years and having recently returned home I have to say that people from the northern counties of Ireland display some of the most insidious forms of racism imaginable.
Not everyone - just too many.
(1) This idea that a divine set of rights to work/citizenship etc are granted by birth and are closed to outsiders.
(2) That culture is a fixed rather than evolving thing.
(3) That northern nationalism and northern unionism are microcosms of the Republic and of Britain/England/UK (whatever you want to call it) when in fact they are seriously outdated ideologies that breed prejudice and paranoia.
(4) That bigotry can be excused in the name of a higher political cause or that racist vitriol is excusable because of all we’ve suffered in history.
(5) That the whole world cares about this protestant/catholic bullshit.
(6) That everyone has a political agenda; that somebody cannot be free from the external influence of British or Irish politics.
(7) That all immigrants are treated badly in other parts of the world - not true.
(8) That you can’t be racist if you are not talking about a black or Asian person. Most of us are racist in Northern Ireland. I was brought up to think of Protestants as a different race. As such I was and may still be a racist.I could go on and on but that’s all I want to say. Who cares what religion a policeman is as long as he or she is not a swaggering bully or a thug who enforces his/her political views on the position or the people they are serving?
Isn’t it more important to have cops who care about their job than a cop of a particular political/ethnic/religious orientation?
Do you really think a white middle class Catholic from the Gold Coast will care any more or less about the people of Lagmore/Andersonstown/South Armagh than a Polish or Chinese officer?
Actually I’d say if a Polish person lived in west Belfast it’d be better for him to police the area than somebody from outside the community.Let them alone for God sake. Do you really want these people going back to their country and saying the north of Ireland is the European equivalent of America’s deep south?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 08:16 AMI have to agree with most of what Paul has said.
It is unfair to claim that those Polish applicants are only in it for the money. They may well see it as an excellent way to integrate into and contribute to our society.
Also it wrong to say that policing is not their business. If they intend to spend the rest of their lives in NI and raise families there then it is as much their business as anyone else that this society is safe and well policed.
Apart from that, if you were to believe some of the posts on this thread, you would be expecting Land Rovers full of foreigners landing at incidents like a foreign occupying force.
Surely a small number of non-Northern Irish officers in the PSNI would enhance its ability to police the evermore diverse community there. It’ll never be much more than a small number.
Xenophobia will do much more harm to a society than a small number of ethnic minority police officers in the local service.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 09:00 AMBTW does anyone have a reputable source on the 50:50 recruitment not applying and/or Polish Catholics being lumped in with Protestants and other minorities??
From today’s Times (of London):
>>>A spokeswoman for the PSNI told The Times that Poles could count towards the quota of Catholics. She said: “When anybody applies for a post it is up to them to say what religion they are — Protestant, Catholic or other. If they put themselves down as Catholic they will fall within the 50-50 recruitment policy.â€<<<
If Polish Catholics wanting to join the peelers have any sense they will put themselves down as Catholics, and not just because they are Catholics. If you know what I mean.
Actually, of all the pseudo-intellectual literary theory psychobabble Harry spouted the thing that amazed me most was his shock at these Poles wanting to become peelers for the money. I mean, people working for the money. How shocking.
What planet do you live on sunshine? I can’t stand my job but I do it for the money and I suspect most people are in the same boat. Oh, but I’m not Polish so maybe it’s OK for me?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 09:47 AMI must admit this one had me feeling happy with the world. When you introduce silly rules fate has a way of highlighting the stupidity.
Employ on ability; not to do so is where discrimination lies. Wonder how many Romanians will apply in a few years?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 10:19 AMHarry - should Poles have to follow the law of the land, but not be permitted to participate in serving the law of the land? If they don’t like it, they can piss off back to Poland, is that your theory? As there are significant numbers of Poles here now, it makes perfect sense that people will want to take up posts in a wide range of avenues. I’d love to know what a ‘normal job’ that doesn’t “agress” the population. Stick to bar work and construction, eh?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 10:37 AMFor what its worth, I think it should be remembered that this is the first time in the history of Ireland that we have experienced a continous net immigration.
Studies on this area in the past have always focussed on emmigration and the safety valve it provided over many centuries.
This situation of people being able to come to our country and find work is unprecendented. As with many other things that are new and unimaginable, we are trying to make sense of it.
While I would share Pauls views almost entirely, I think that just telling people they are ‘wrong’ for the sake of it is not helpful. This is not something within the range of experience for our citizens and frankly its no surprise to find people reacting like this. We can all be shocked and horrified and smugly complacent if we are world travellers, but the problem remains.
The world is different and poluations are shifting in a way not really seen in a simialr fashion in the past. Improving understanding, better integration and shared opportunites will help, but it will take time.
Leaving Croke Park a few months ago, I quipped that it wouldne be long before there would be a Polish kid on in the field wearing a Laois jumper. I was amazed at the hostility of the reaction, so this is obviously our next big problem. If we dont face it and deal with it, we are really just storing it up
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 11:23 AMMany Irish people have experience of this - we have lived and worked in other countries where 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants made up 16% or so of the population. We are familiar with england, continental europe and the united states. To suggest this reaction is due to ignorance is self-regarding and narrow-minded. It’s about power. It’s about foreigners coming into a situation where they are choosing to interfere in highly political concerns for their own career reasons.
The Poles have only been here for 2 years and yet they want to police us? And people find this a sensible suggestion? Ethnic minorities in the British police are mostly from the 2nd and 3rd generation of those communities in that country. No doubt some officers from the new communities are employed for community liaison reasons, which is understandable and necessary.
But apparently people here think 1st generation immigrants who’ve only been here a couple of years should be sent out to police us and that it’s a great thing altogether. Sure aren’t we all a bunch of backward savages anyway who need to leave our ideas of nationalism behind?
Those who engage in a grand ‘mea culpa’ about our society while leaving the british responsibility for fucking up our country out of it and simultaneously looking to foreigners to solve our problems are not ‘enlightened’, they are in self-denial. The only thing they will achieve is the perpetuation of depowerment, not its remedy. How else could it be the case, since they are too embarrassed and fraught with self-apology to take a grip on their country?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 11:48 AMHarry, I don’t think all 1000 Poles will be given posts. But I don’t think we should be terrified or deeply angered by the fact that they are applying either. I don’t see why it’s automatically a damaging idea for foreigners to apply to PSNI. Why shouldn’t Poles want a career? It seems that you are advocating a notion that foreigners should be required to do menial work that natives do not wish to take up. If you really come down to it, anyone moving to NI is ‘interfering’, shaking up the gene pool and shifting cultural notions. Yes, that can be scary; change is scary. But you assume it will be negative and I just don’t see that’s the case. Could you imagine that Poles might wish to join PSNI to serve their community, not just to exercise power over hapless natives? I have relatives who were police, and not one of them ever said the key satisfaction was to break people’s balls and keep them in line. They all speak of a wish to work constructively in the community they live in. Poles who join the police are likely to stake a committment to stay here.
PS A few Poles in PSNI will not solve the problems this country faces, and I’m sure they would hoot with laughter if this premise was presented to them. I’m chuckling about it.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:02 PMAs is often the case on Slugger, I cannot envisage any resolution to this debate. It seems to me that the contending viewpoints are simply poles apart.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:23 PM“Poles who join the police are likely to stake a committment to stay here”
Let them stake a commitment first and then apply to the police. Not the other way around.
Such policing is not normal in continental europe, or in most places in the world as far as I am aware - apart that is from former colonies in the english-speaking world. What does that tell you about the origin of the motivations toward this radical change in the way we enforce law upon ourselves? I would find being stopped and questioned by a Polish person about my movements around my country unacceptable. Just as I have found the british army and the RUC an unacceptable imposition against my will and against my interests.
The same is true for other countries - I doubt most europeans would accept what you propose. My own partner is a foreigner who has lived here for many years and even she does not agree with this proposal.
Demanding that people integrate over many years before being allowed to join the police is not tantamount to ensuring new arrivals are made to flip burgers and nothing else. Ridiculous. Reductio ad absurdum is often employed in argument, especially on the internet, but rarely convincingly. Everything is open up to foreigners and many are welcome to come here. But policing is different.
As regards the ‘backward ideology’ of demanding a resolution of our political issues in a way that is favourable to our sense of nationhood, I would just point out that the greatest power on earth is currently engaged in one of its greatest bouts of nationalistic self-aggrandisement - the United States. Globalisation is as much a push for American hegemony in the world as it is the result of ‘enlightenment’, indeed probably more so.
As I say, who controls the future controls the present.Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:30 PMHarry
You seem to be imbuing the police with special kind of powers, well beyond the uphodling of law and order. Police dont change mind sets nor are they empowered to do this.Its well to leave the high debate for a while and remember the reality on the ground. I was stopped last night by a police patrol outside Rathfriland. One of my headlights was out, and the officer was making a song and dance about it. Did I know it was an offence, how long did I know, was I prepared to fix it, did I realise it was irresponsible. Finally, I got mad and told him to give me a ticket, if it would shut him up. In the end he declined and gave me a warning.
Thats everyday ordinary policing, and it doesnt matter a damn who is doing it. We are moving to a multi culturally mixed society, and this is about equality of opportunity for all those who reside here, and not excluively to those who have 9 generations in the cemetary
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:33 PMNice to see the locals completely failing to grasp the concept of Europe, once again. Free movement of labour, any EU citizen can work in any EU country. It’s that simple. The Polis are a job, to most normal people anyway. Poles, French, German, etc anyone in the EU can do it, it only happens that the only place thats a bigger sh!thole the N.I. happens to be Poland.
It is a handy example of how NI;s political stagnations / complete ineptitude of their politicians has been to their consituents disadvantage, yet again, now their even less likely to get a job, SF and DUP should put that in their manifesto.
ps what is the current position of SF on policing? it hard to keep track of. Ah but they’ve got this huge fundamental gain on rubber bullets, well done.
Theoretical question, what happens if Polish uptake in the PSNI is so great that there end up being more Poles than “Catholics” (well no the right type of SF approved shinner Catholics) in the PSNI, What will SF whinge about next?
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:38 PMMany continental societies are multi-cultural and they don’t employ police who have only been in their country for a couple of years. Most europeans would find it unacceptable. Your coupling of the two concepts is neither necessary nor normal.
Posted by on Jan 12, 2007 @ 12:41 PM
