http://www.greenanarchist.org.uk/Nire.htm
For 17 years now Northern Ireland has been the
training ground for the British State's counter insurgency
techniques.
On a recent visit to Ireland Arthur Scargill told an audience of Irish
people that the miners' strike of 1984 had shown Britain for what it
really is, a vicious police state. Roars of laughter greeted the
spectacle of an English person coming to Ireland to tell the Irish that
they live in a police state. For 17 years now Northern Ireland has been
the training ground and the Irish working class the guinea pigs for the
British state's counter insurgency techniques.
.... Since 1972 the British state has been able to erect the full
apparatus of a totalitarian state here in Northern Ireland in the name of
'a war against terrorism', ie a war against the catholic working class.
'Totalitarian' is no exaggeration. The typical catholic housing estate
here has an army barracks / fortress in the middle of it, keeping a close
surveillance of everyone on the estate with close circuit TV cameras,
infra red cameras for night vision and a radar system which can detect
anyone moving out of sight of electronic eyes in cameras. Helicopters
hover overhead for most of the day with zoom in cameras, and telephone of
anyone 'discontented' is tapped and their mail opened.
Now working class housing estates are built according to a British army
architect's specification. They are designed to give minimum room for
civil disobedience and maximum room for the British army to step in to
crush any outbreaks. Housing estates are built with only one exit /
entrance so anyone causing trouble can be easily trapped inside; each
block is a different colour or shade, and army helicopters have a special
colour code of the estate so that any block or single house can be
quickly and easily pin pointed from the air.
Etc.