Violence in Belfast - Why can’t we all learn from history?

Some societies and communities seem unable to suppress the instincts, the atavistic gene, that will, if not checked, lead to their own destruction.

For nearly all of its history, government in the North used democracy as a fig leaf to facilitate the majority loyalist population behaving as it wished. They used the undeniable arithmetic to dress their actions as democracy in action rather than its corruption.

For decades, and unfettered by any intrusion from London, they ignored the spirit of real, inclusive democracy and presided over institutionalised human rights abuses. Those administrations seemed so unable to change their ways that London eventually had to re-impose direct rule.