Since the Patten Commission report was published in September 1999, unionists and nationalists have bickered fiercely about the future of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. A pack of stray dogs, let loose on the residue of a prime rib of beef from the dustbins of the Belfast Europa, would have seemed dignified by comparison.
The ferocity of the debate was aggravated by interventions from within the police family, mainly by the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which supposedly reflects the views of the RUC's 12,500 rank-and-file officers. They moaned consistently that the proposed renaming as the Police Service for Northern Ireland was a betrayal of their courage and sacrifice during the preceding years of conflict and, above all, a betrayal of the 302 officers who had been murdered and the thousands of others injured or maimed.
Some of these interventions bordered on the sectarian and, by implication, also sought to disenfranchise those who had exercised their democratic wish to vote for Sinn Fein, and others with violent pedigrees, by challenging their right to participate in the envisaged structures intended to ensure new standards of effective and accountable policing through unprecedented cross-community consent and a redesigned network of local partnerships.
However misguided, extreme or uncongenial the free choice of the electorate, it is not, and never should be, the business of the police. In exchange for operational independence and freedom from outright partisan political control, society is entitled to expect strict political neutrality in word and deed from the police.
As the debate raged, the legitimate voice of the RUC itself was notably silent. "We stand ready for change," said Sir Ronnie Flanagan, time and time again, but neither he, nor any of his senior officers, chose, or was permitted, to spell out the proposition in any detail, never mind counterpoint the strident sense of outrage and grievance that dominated the Police Federation's dubious contribution to the sterile debate.
How the police service intends to advance should now be explained urgently in sustained, open and transparent detail. The force command must move swiftly to demonstrate convincingly its capacity to secure and drive through change. By doing so, it will bring an end to the uncertainty that has so fractured RUC morale, engendered such deep internal frustration in the recent past and enabled the RUC's critics to cast doubt on its aims and integrity.
But if the police service is to be effectively transformed from what Sir Ronnie has so evocatively described as its "white, male Protestant" culture, it must have the active consent, co-operation and participation of the entire community, especially elected representatives, at all levels. The omens are not encouraging. The Dublin Government refuses to endorse the legislative and operational structures now being put in place for a new beginning for policing in Northern Ireland. The Catholic Church, save for the doughty Mgr Denis Faul, has also declined to turn history on its head by openly supporting the police and encouraging young men and women to join the service.
Over the past few days we have seen the SDLP, the supposed voice of practical nationalism, competing with a genetically uncompromising Sinn Fein to find ways of not supporting and participating in the changing police regime. Like the unionists, who cite the "proud" record of the RUC as sufficient reason for no change, the SDLP is obsessed with the past, rather than the future. The proposed Policing Board is not the forum to probe concerns about historical events. Its task is to overcome the prejudices of the past by ensuring that the Police Service for Northern Ireland, scheduled to come into existence in nine months, is professional, effective, accountable, even-handed and representative of the entire community.
Nationalists should recognise that the politics of boycott has never achieved anything. The institutions do not collapse and the grievances and shortcomings that inspire non-participation only broaden and intensify. The most effective way to achieve change is to go in, however grave the reservations, and work the mechanisms. If fears of obstruction or lack of power turn out to be justified then there is an unassailable case to be made for further change.
The evolution of the RUC as the armed wing of unionism in the years after 1922, and the lasting rift between the police and the minority community, only became possible because Catholics then deemed the policing mechanisms unacceptable and boycotted them. Unionists were thus able to exploit the boycott, moulding the police more and more to their own agenda and making them even more unacceptable to nationalists.
I fear the same mistake is about to be repeated and I urge the SDLP not to do so, not least because I strongly suspect that it is not the policing proposals that are wrong but that it is running scared of Sinn Fein in advance of the local and general elections this spring. Such politics is as despicable as terrorism for it, too, ultimately costs lives.
Chris Ryder is the author of The RUC: A Force Under Fire, and is a former member of the Police Authority for Northern Ireland
Mary Holland is on leave