Sir, - The single most worrying aspect of the recent murders in Lurgan is what it reveals about the provos political analysis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Prior to these murders the Provisional movement's political position was at its strongest ever. They had two MPs, one TD, an incoming Fianna Fail Government in Dublin and the Tories out of power in London. A ceasefire would almost certainly have been sufficient to facilitate Sinn Fein's entry into talks. If talk of a "totally unarmed strategy" was serious and if there existed a new Provo analysis, now was the moment to move forward. Instead, we had Lurgan. Lurgan makes no sense if the Provos were serious about wanting to enter peace talks.
Peace talks could have yielded some form of compromise settlement, perhaps even joint authority.What they were never going to deliver was a united Ireland. Lurgan seems to suggest that the Provos are not out for compromise, but want to go the whole hog of a united independent republic. They do not realise - or cannot accept - that this is not possible. Their analysis tells them that the British will eventually get sick of Northern Ireland and pull out. Then the unionist upper classes will accept a united Ireland to avoid the chaos of civil war. They will do so to be able to continue doing business and making money, and the Loyalist masses will meekly do as their masters tell them.
This analysis is wildly inaccurate. It implies that the unionist upper classes are a breed of pure home economics, whose sole concern is money. It is like the myth with which unionists persuaded themselves that nationalists could be reconciled to the Union first by trying to kill Home Rule with kindness in the 1890s and later expecting the Welfare State to achieve the same aim with nationalists in Northern Ireland. The assumption that unionist upper classes are men without chests whose sole preoccupation is money is dangerously simplistic. More dangerous is the assumption that the Loyalist masses would quietly follow the lead of their upper classes, their entire history shows them to be one of the most rebellious peoples in Europe. It would be impossible both politically and militarily for the South to coerce the unionists into a united Ireland.
Those who want to hold out for the impossible dream of a united Ireland may find it difficult to accept that people who died or served long years in jail for an all Ireland republic suffered in vain; but sometimes this happens. The dream of a united Ireland was drowned in the blood and bitterness of the past 30 years.
As they are largely responsible for this state of affairs, the Provos might find this difficult to accept but the alternative is more bloody futility.
There may be an honourable way out. Joint authority provides a sort of united Ireland, and is likely to be as far as the unionists will ever agree to go. The traditional Provo analysis of Northern Ireland amounts to little more than wish fulfilment. It is lime they woke up to the reality that the real partition problem is not the border, but the peace lines which divide Belfast the result of sectarian civil war. If the British pulled out tomorrow, that problem would remain. Shooting Protestant policemen hardly helps matters - and deep down, Gerry Adams knows that. Yours, etc.,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich.