HISTORY THEN AND NOW
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fanaticism in fighting for their identi ty and survival? I don't know. But his–
tory shows us that the smaller the group, the greater the fear of being lost,
the greater the urge to survive. Think of Bosnia. Look at Spain. Spain has
two major minorities: the Catalan and the Basque. Among the Catalan
there has been no terrorism whatsoever, among the Basque a great deal.
Why? There are many Catalans, they are rich, and do not feel swamped by
the Spaniards. But the Basques' si tuation is different. There are relatively
few, they are economically unimportant, and they have a real fear that they
will disappear.
Alfred Eisenpreis:
The financing of various wars during the ninteenth
century was a major issue in dealing wi th the court of St. Petersburg. Other
wars involved the Rothschilds and other banking houses, so that issue, I
think, had a great deal of acceptance. It was brought to life in the recent
biography of Rothschild, which related a story about the widow being
asked if there would be a war and she said no, my sons will not allow it,
they will not finance it.
But I wanted to ask a question that goes beyond the theme of this con–
ference. Huntington's new book talks about the straits in which western
civilization finds itself, trying to maintain and preserve the traditions of
western culture beyond the year 2000. We have pretty much implied that
the traditions are going to be around. Where do you see changes that
might be touched on? Dr. Laqueur referred to H.G. Wells's comment on
big cities. That city of twenty million is not London but Mexico City,
Caracas, Lagos. [ think we have implied a somewhat insular approach.
Maybe it is worth a word or two to talk about where during this coming
century tradi tions might be moving to.
Robert Wistrich:
When you told that anecdote about the Rothschilds it
crossed my mind what a great force for peace the Rothschild family really
was, if they could avoid wars. They should be praised! But in terms of the
future cultural shape of the world, I cannot help thinking of the billion or so
Chinese. China's rise to Great Power status is almost inevitable, I would
think, in the coming century. What implications will that have? I think about
the Chinese and the Jews as the two most ancient civilizations that are still
around, based though they are on completely different conditions of survival.
All those millions of hine e have never had a demographic problem-or
rather their problem is the opposite of the Jews-they themselves feel that
they are too many! They have been rooted in their terri tory, in the same
place, for centuries, whereas the Jews had to invent the most mobile and
portable of civilizations. I can't answer the wider question about which con–
figurations will turn out to be dominant. But there is a tendency in the West
to assume that Western-predom.inately American and to some extent
