European Fascism developed indigenous movements in many countries, not just Germany and Italy. In Hungary, there was the Arrow Cross, in Romania Iron Guard. Croatia had the Ustaše and Slovakia it own variant, clerical fascism under Jozef Tiso's régime When the countries were occupied by the Nazis, these indigenous Fascist movements did much of the dirty work in eliminating Jews and others often with extreme brutality.
Eugene Ionesco grew up in Romania during the time when the Iron Cross seduced many of the young and intellectuals. He observed first hand the seductive power of these movements.
In 1959, Ionesco wrote the play Rhinoceros as a metaphor for this conversion of formerly intelligent and sane individuals into the moral and political equivalent of non-human brutes. He explored the many rationalizations of the folks swept by this movement, how they trivialized and justified submission. He explored the fascination humans have for brute power that made Fascism compelling.
At the start of the play, an individual rhinoceros was sighted rampaging through a small French village and noted as a surprising novelty. Their very existence is questioned, and once acknowledged as real, arguments were made they should not be allowed. The numbers of these wild brutes increased, and it became apparent that they were former humans transformed into beasts. What started as a frightening, unbelievable anomaly was quickly accepted. Staunch opponents of the rhinoceros invasion turned into supporters, believing in their own philosophical rationalization. As one character said, "Humanism is dead, those who follow it are just old sentimentalists". The opposition became co-opted, as what was once a shocking instance of sub human brutality became the norm. At the end there is single hold out, who is reduced to hurling abuse at passing armies of rhinoceros from a window, having no effect on the march of brute power below.
While the fable was meant as an allegory of pre-war European Fascism, it has a broader meaning about the acceptance of sub human brutality. The phenomenon is first denied, then viewed as an an isolated anomaly, gradually subsumes popular discourse, then pushes opposition to the margins. What was once unthinkably inhuman and barbaric becomes unquestionable common wisdom. Opponents are isolated individuals, shouting their disgust from windows, questioning their efforts as a march of unthinking power subsumes them. This is not peculiar to Europe in the 1930s — Rhinoceros applies to any society that can be seduced by an anti-human political movement.
We cannot let the growth of a brutal inhuman political movement be treated as a novelty or as a television reality show. We risk trivializing evil when we attack personal quirks rather than the underlying evil of the entire movement. We need to take the growth of anti-human movements seriously and not let these movements normalize their moral poison.