Why Should Workers Want the Gardai Reformed?

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis

Friday May 09, 2014 20:01

by Paddy Hackett

Populism within the Dail.

The more a police force appears to serve the class interests of the working class the more successful it may be in fooling the working class.

The whistle blower controversy concerning the Gardai is a non-issue concerning the class interests of the working class.

The gardai, as a security force, forms an essential arm of the Irish capitalist state. Consequently its function is to serve the class interests of the capitalist class --not the working class. Therefore calls for the improvement of this security force by "leftists" suggests that the Gardai in some way represents the class interests of the working class or is an apparatus of a state that stands independent of the capitalist class.

The Gardai can never serve the interests of the working class despite the degree to which it is reformed. Any reforms undertaken are, at most, made to deceive workers into believing that the Irish state exists to serve the interests of the wage worker.

The more a police force appears to serve the class interests of the working class the more successful it may be in fooling the working class.

All this stuff about misconduct within the Gardai has no real relevance for workers. At most its so called misconduct merely exposes the bourgeois nature of the force. Parliamentarians like Clare Daly, Mike Wallace and Ming Flanagan by tub thumping in relation to the Gardai are merely engaging in populism designed to fool the working class. Sinn Fein, not to be outdone, has been engaged in a similar exercise.

Calling for the resignation of Allen Shatter, as Justice Minister, is of no significance. It does not matter politically whether he resigns or not.He will be simply replaced by another politician from the parties in coalition government. By calling for his resignation the appearance is created that his replacement by another politician from a bourgeois party will make a difference.

The calling for the jailing of white collar crime is another issue that is not the business of the working class. Prisons are oppressive bourgeois institutions.

The only correct call, from the standpoint of the wage worker, is the call for the abolition of the Gardai.