Word: udas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...restaurant recently opened a branch on Mass Ave. between Harvard and Central Squares. The Uda family, which owns Roka, could not be reached for comment...
...hasty unification of the island. "They realize that if they were suddenly handed back the North now it would be a disaster. If the British army can't handle the IRA coming out of one-third of the population, the Irish army certainly couldn't handle the UDA coming out of two-thirds of the population. And probably a tougher two-thirds at that." The paramilitary groups make any peace even harder to achieve, he adds...
...class. In the larger cities, particularly Belfast and Londonderry, where the violence predominates and where Protestants and Catholics live in tense proximity, the population is heavily working class. Virtually all the major violence occurs in working class neighborhoods. The main para-militaries--the IRA, and the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), both Protestant groups--are all manned by residents of these communities. Even the British army, manned by recruits from the back streets of Leeds or the gorboels of Glascow, is a working-class force...
...UDA and the UVF consequently have more direct sympathy among Protestants than the IRA does among Catholics, because they are seen as the final guarantors of Protestant ascendance. They have managed to legitimize themselves in the eyes of many by claiming to protect the same "order" the police and army uphold. But, in fact, neither group will tolerate a government that concedes any power to Catholics. If the British government should compromise the Unionist cause, the UDA and UVF can be counted on to react with violence, their professions of "loyalty" and "order" notwithstanding...
Ophuls apparently saw that and yet he seems merely content to state the immediacy, rather than give us some idea of what it is about. That is what is disturbing about the omission of serious interviews with actual Provisional IRA and UDA volunteers. Why do these people fight? Do they have the support of their communities? Are they noble knights of a cause or are they merely hoods, and do their neighbors perceive them as such? These are important questions and Ophuls does not address them. He only touches on them in a confused and inconclusive discussion with a Catholic...