Rhinoceros | An Antifascist Play

Eugene Ionesco's play Rhinoceros is incredibly relevant this week. Here's why.

#arthistory #art

[leehayes]

A rhinoceros just ran through the comments!

[Petch]

When people say, “we have made it through worse before” all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones of those who did not make it, those who did not survive to see the confetti fall from the sky. — Clint Smith

I lived through a fascist dictatorship in Brazil. In fact I was raise during those years (I was born in 1960 and the CIA sponsored military dictatorship coup happened in 1964). There were twenty years before the population could vote for a president, governors, senators, and house representatives. The people’s power was diminished to vote for council members and mayors only. A return to the political process before the independence, to the colonial political pattern of pre-1822.

The one commonality I see between Brazil and the United States is the process of keeping the masses ignorant, instigating mass delusions and hysteria through banning books, teaching fantasy instead of history, creating myths instead basing news on facts, maintaining the populus ignorant, turning all into rhinoceroses.

We lived in metaphors: we spoke of rot, sang about bands and prostitutes, plays about Eden and paradises, saviors and heroes. It influenced my studies and eventually I became an anthropologist focusing on metaphors, theater, and myths.

Eventually the dictatorship became unstable with high inflation, an increase in poverty (after those 20 yrs, poverty went from 30% to 80%), unleashed corruption, and strangling censorship, the left began to gain ground. It started with the metal workers union. The metal workers who produced parts for American and European cars (i.e. ford and Volkswagen), who worked for slave wages, who lost all their rights began to strike, and these strikes last months until it began to negatively affect the economy and the production for export.

What I see here in the US coming down the pike are the same policies I saw growing up in Brazil.
I’ll continue my work on my social justice journey and using theatre as a healing tool.

Good luck to us all.

[glennlavertu]

My heart sank when you asked "and does that make you feel isolated?" Yes... yes... so alone. So isolated.

[qwertyuiopaaaaaaa]

If anyone else is scrolling through the comments, I just want to encourage you to unionize.

When people say “build community” as a response to right wing authoritarianism, a labor or tenant union are really concrete ways of doing that.

I started unionizing my workplace about a year ago and it’s going great. Me and 4 friends started with absolutely no experience and now we have dozens of organizers and well over 100 supporters.

It’s hard work, but it’s not that hard, and there’s a lot of parent unions who can help teach you the way. Start by googling parent unions who represent your industry.

Solidarity, my friends. We can build our own democracies.

[piccalillipit]

*I DONT FIGHT FASCISTS BECAUSE I THINK IM GOING TO WIN* I fight fascists because they are fascists!

Chris Hedges

[mossydog]

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.
That in it's essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D Roosevelt

[kkmate]

One thing that helps me whenever I feel particularly hopeless is imagining a future documentary about today. We always view fascism and authoritarian regimes through this historical lens (which is partially why people can be so slow to fight against it at first). It’s easy to view it that way—as something that we’ve already triumphed against. Because it doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination (unlike imagining a future free from exploitation and injustice), I find it to be comforting to imagine what a future documentary about our struggles and victory looks like to those who get to enjoy the freedoms we fought so hard to preserve for them. These documentaries always make victory seem inevitable, like history just HAD to turn out that way. That can be quite comforting when you’re in the middle of the struggle and are really doubting if you’ll make it out the other side alright. We fight the despots of this world so that our children can live in a safe world, and they never doubted that we’d win—so why should we?

[katyungodly]

It's crazy to see the Christians I grew up with rejecting all of Jesus' teachings to embrace capitalism and fascism. Propaganda is a helluva thing.

[The_Promethean]

I can’t recall from where I heard it, but on the topic of hope:

Hope isn’t something you wish for. Hope isn’t something out there. Not something ephemeral and delicate and fleeting. No, hope is… She is a steely eyed woman. Her mouth full of grit and blood, she spits as she stands back up. Clenching her scarred fists she wipes the snot and blood from her face and gets ready to get knocked back down. And stand up. Again.

You might feel crazy. You might feel weak. You might feel alone. And hell, two of those might be true. But you are not alone.

This last week common decency and humanism got dealt a hell of a blow. Spit the blood out, and stand back up. Because you are Hope.

[Greenplanet]

People say “It will be fine.” I remember an elderly German 35 years ago, when I lived there telling me “At the end of it (WWII in Berlin) there we were, the formerly rich and poor alike, in rags, starving, standing in the ruins of our once beautiful cities.”

[lauren]

“If we aren’t surrounded by evil people, then we don’t have to worry about fascism! ..right??” OO that got me. It’s so painful to see people I love and care about turn this way. We must always come from a place of love and compassion for all. Never give up kindness 💖

[thecitizen]

I suggest a book By Gerald Horne, "The Counter Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of US Fascism". This is an excellent story about the Texas Revolution of 1836 and the mythology of that story. I was born in Alabama in 1949 and raised in Texas. The United States was built on the cadavers of the dead native Americans and the slaves kidnapped from Africa, brought to America and worked to death. It is the great taboo to speak truth about the real history of the US.

[TheManicMillennial]

My parents are rhinoceroses and it scares the crap out of me. Even some of my friends have fallen for it. I feel so isolated lately and feel like I’m the only sane one which just drives me insane. I am left hysterical as all the people around me calmly normalize the dehumanization of everything from Arabs to anyone who would oppose Trump and his Fascist movement. Thank you for making this video at least makes me feel a little less alone.

I honestly believe it is incumbent upon us all to create a new political movement that is unified and is as unified as trumpers. And it can’t be the democrats who will slow roll an acceptance of these beliefs for pure political reasons. Now they will avoid calling him a fascist because they will be scared of the backlash. I genuinely fear for the long term future of this country.

[bgregz]

You know, as a Romanian, I'm somewhat self-hating, but every now and then a good Romanian comes around. Good stuff from Ionescu

[EricBolkart]

Wow, the rhinoceros complaining to the human character that he is intolerant towards their rhino appearance (views) is the same as how real life rhino's mock and gaslight you for even questioning their ethics or morals. The play, if created today, would be a lot more patronizing and contain a lot more thought terminating cliches like "Oh you're so offended, " "Oh are you crying, are you triggered"

[azaraniichan]

ORGANIZE Join associations to help your community, join a political group, find what you can do at the local level !!

[piccalillipit]

*MY MOTIVATIONAL COMMENT* IN 2015 I suffered brain damage in a mugging and lost everything - I tried to unalive myself and failed and it really hurt.

I kept going for no reason other than - what else was there to do? I had no option but to get through each day as it came. I moved into a motel and the cleaners helped me. Then into an empty apartment and I enjoyed the empty space and calm. 9 years later Im through it and Im happy on a beach in Bulgaria. YOU will get through - 1 day at a time

[ExtremelyTriggered-tlnv]

It’s hard to even communicate how hard this video connected, like it’s genuinely scary how much all of this lines up exactly with my experiences. It is both comforting and depressing to know that last time people felt just as we do now.

[pameiuioigoutu]

Reminds me of a quote by Hannah Arendt about moral responsability: the people who opposed nazism when everyone around them had embraced or normalized it, didn't refuse to be part of that collective delirium just because of a moral dogma, but because "they could't live with themselves if they do", because no matter how the rethoric of good and evil can be twisted to justify the horrors of nazism, they weren't able to live with a murderer (themselves)