G.
L.
Arnold
CO-EXISTENCE: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
Anyone who joins the current discussion on East-West
relations and the long-term chances of co-existence had best begin
by "declaring his interest," as they say in the House of Commons;
that is, by disclosing his material stake
(if
any) in the disputed
subject. This is comparatively easy if one happens to live on the
side of the Atlantic which from an American viewpoint must be
described as "eastern," though as good citizens of the Atlantic
community we are .all, of course, inescapably "Westerners," even if
we do not think highly of Toynbee's mixed assortment of categories.
To a European-and for this immediate purpose Britain may be in–
cluded in Europe-there clearly is an overriding interest which neces–
sarily dominates all thinking on the question: the continued existence
of Europe as such. First, of course, its physical survival; and next,
if
this is assumed (it obviously cannot be assured), its continuance
as an autonomous and coherent entity, with a civilization stretching
forward as well as backward, not brought suddenly to a stop by a
cataclysm comparable to the catastrophe of the Mediterranean world
in an earlier age: not, in other words, subjected by, or incorporated
in, a primitive, semi-Asiatic empire with a totalitarian form of
government and a state religion compulsory for all its inhabitants.
Nor, it should be added, overrun and then atomically "liberated";
or treated as a battleground in some Orwellian future; or ruined,
despised, annexed and reduced to satellite status in an American
empire sprawling all over the globe, as Rome
(if
we are to believe
Rostovtzev) systematically ruined Greece before annexing it. (There
is of course no evidence that anyone harbors such intentions. We
are dealing with tendencies.)
The European, then, is both a born citizen of the Atlantic
