If Ulster had been relatively prosperous modernisation might have been possible. But new political structures are more difficult to build than new factories. The one party state proved too hysteric to change under adverse conditions. This is central to understanding the situation. The Unionist party, the Orange order, the police force, and the lumpen, "B' specia', are the state. There is no 'neutral' apparatus with two parties and a flexible centre. One social group, for historic and economic reasons which are fast disappearing gained power over a smaller group within a confined area and are attempting to keep it by keeping up the border. Under order from Westminster the Unionists will put through reforms. But it has little hope of surviving. The British want to create a coalition government and are willing to impose this by force providing they don't have to open fire. Not even a long history of Imperial magic and conjuring tricks will make that an easy thing to achieve. No real reform such as abolishing the "B' specials or The Special Powers Act, is possible, no 'central' state power can be created without splitting the Unionist/Orange bloc. Once split, the hard liners will have to be put down. The Catholics expect the British to tear gas them and shoot them down. The Protestants who are the fall guys of British Imperialism, don't.
Behind the barricades the Catholics have been led by the hierachical organisations of the Church and the IRA. The Church still has more popular power and is more effective. The areas leave mixed feelings with anyone who visits them. To wake up in liberated territory, to emerge into a run down Victorian ghetto, and see that the streets belong to the people and that there are NO POLICEMEN, and to look down the street to the twenty-foot high steel barricade with workers guarding its side entrance; that is a really good feeling. But although physically liberated the areas were not politically free. There is no proletarian астостасу. defence committee \is not elected. This is not mass meetings are rare, ine surprising, it is not a city that has been freed, there are no areas of political or industrial production within the barricades (no factories, town halls, or even cinemas). The barricades are defensive and surround Catholic homes. The inertia of self-defence and the static position of being beseiged give an insight into Cameronwild-man, the RUC as indisciplined hooligans and PD as subverters of the constitution. the second, things fall a bit more into place. We established) inferiority and discrimination than in the past' (ibid).. . It was members of the Catholic middle-class which in 1964 founded the Campaign for Social Justice' (para 12). 'It