How are the Newts symbolic in the novel, War with the Newts?

The all-too-human salamanders are the book's most multifaceted and complex symbol. Within the parameters of the author's narrative thought experiment, they are both a catalyst and a microscope with which he studies a civilization which, however hale on the outside, nurtures multiple forms of fascist and militarist cancer within. The Newts are a blank page onto which every government, every industrial, cultural and religious organization projects their fears, prejudices and hostilities. It is for this very reason that it is so easy to identify them with almost all types of victims, slaves and minorities that were hunted, persecuted or exploited in the course of history.