While reading on the history of fascism, I noticed that the fasces is a symbol that repeatedly popped up, particularly in Italy under Mussolini.
The symbol intrigued me, and I noticed that it appears in many displays today (Logos of law schools, on the Lincoln memorial, etc.), just like the swastika appears on many ancient East Asian structures.
We all know that the swastika is heavily frowned upon in contemporary social culture and western society in general, so how come the fasces is far less known and scrutinized, if known at all?
As much as it was a warmongering, racist and criminal dictatorship, Italian fascism was not guilty of the same crimes against humanity as Nazism. German Nazism was practically the regime that invented genocide, to the point that the word itself was coined in 1944 to describe the "nameless crime" (citing Churchill) that the Nazis were carrying out in Europe. This elevates it to be THE criminal and fascist regime par excellence, hence the iron condemnation 80 years later of all its symbols.
By virtue of the greater scope of its crimes, its military successes and the generally greater impact on mass culture, German Nazism has become the model of inspiration for virtually all European and American right-wing extremists, relegating Italian fascism to the history books and defusing the power of its symbols: at far-right demonstrations you see the swastika waving, not the fasces lictorio. Even in Italy the fasces as a fascist symbol is not widely used, and far-right youth organizations have adopted the Celtic cross since the 1970s.
As you rightly point out, the swastika is a much more widespread symbol in the East than in the West, and in Europe and America it is associated almost exclusively with the German völkisch movement of the late 19th century and then with Nazism. Conversely, the fascio littorio boasts continued and widespread use in the West that predates Italian fascism by centuries. They were the symbol of the power of the magistrates in republican Rome and in this capacity were taken up by those who, beginning in the eighteenth century, opposed more traditional, monarchical forms of power by claiming to be inspired by the republican virtues of Rome (almost always to an idealized and not historically accurate version). The meaning given to it of strength through unity was initially understood in a democratic sense, that is, that the people if united were stronger than the monarch. And in this sense it was much loved by the French and U.S. republics and those who were inspired by them such as Canton St. Gallen in Switzerland, Cameroon, and Ecuador. In short, having an older and more widespread history than Italian fascism, the fascio as a symbol was able to survive (except in Italy, for obvious reasons) World War II without being linked only to the Italian regime.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)