Barnett on the IRA statement

Anthony Barnett over at the OpenDemocracy website has some interesting comments on the unionist reaction to the IRA statement.

Why did the Protestants feel they lost even when the armed Catholics accepted the parliamentary road? Could it be because, psychologically, they really did want to dominate the Catholics: that their varient of British nationalism was deeply bound up with their supremacy and its demonstration?

If so a question follows about the United States. It says it wants democracy all around the world. Inevitably, this will reduce it to one nation among others. What if its vision of itself is as the giver and arbiter of democracy? What if, for Washington, ‘democracy’ is an expression of its supremacy not an acceptance of the need for equality and rights?

If so, then even when the cause is won, it will lose. (oD Today)