Being from Belfast, I think I shouyld be able to say that the RUC have officially changed to the PSNI. Officially. However they still wear the same badge and are still the same Loyalist bigots they always were.
There have been stories that around 150 Catholics have joined the new force (calling them police is a joke). These Catholics however are of middle- and upper-class status and are the same types of dickheads who worked in the prisons and had to be extra tough on Republican prisoners to prove themselves to their Protestant coworkers.
There's a book that was released, written by Bobby Sands (he led and was the first to die in the 1981 Hunger Strikes), called "One Day In My Life" and describes the torture the Republican prisoners were forced to endure.
Believe me, this new service means sweet fuck all to working-class Catholics/Nationalists/Republicans. A partitionist force set up for the protection of Unionists will never be accepted.
(Edited by CiaranB at 7:09 pm on Dec. 18, 2001)
“There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, for a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory; just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us.” – Che Guevara
“We still believe that the struggle of Ireland for freedom is a part of the world-wide upward movement of the toilers of the earth, and we still believe that the emancipation of the working class carries within it the end of all tyranny – national, political and social.” – James Connolly