L’empreinte du Rhinocéros

This article is based on a Ionesco’s
testimony during a conference he delivered
near Florence in 1986. Rhinocéros is a fable,
an allegory which historically refers to the
subversive power of the Iron Guard, whose
ultranationalist and xenophobic language
converted most of Eugen Ionescu’s friends to
Nazism, gradually turning them into rhinos. The
rhinos speak a foreign and incomprehensible
language, full of violent slogans where human
values are completely degraded. Everything
becomes threatening. Totalitarian ideology and
collectivism propagate barbarism. The risk is the
definitive destruction of thought.