Week 4 post B

This week I wish to discuss the book in the respect that the author (Roland Smith) draws attention to the hardships war unintentionally creates for all of those who are in the countries involved in the war. For example, Nick orginally lives in England during world war II, but is moved to Burma because of all the Nazi bombings. He arrives there only to discover war is just around the corner, and all of the inhabitants of Burma are about to suffer for what they had no part of. Japan invaded Burma, which lead to the basic enslavement of the Mahouts (elephant drivers) and the people in the communites nearby. A far out community is forced to give tribute to the Japanese soldiers, which completely disrupts their lifestyle and thus they have to endure hardships because they have to eat less and live in fear of Japan's rule. Another example of how innocent people have to endure hardships is when a girl is forced to shave all her hair and her eyebrows in order to escape the Japanese compound disguised as a monk. Conquered countries don't usually have a say in what their conquerers do. So of course the citizens of a conquered country don't have any rights at all, unless the conquerers give them some.
The thing I loved about this book was how the author got these hardships across with barely any violence or death, this made this book better in my mind because almost all books about war have greatly depressing scenes that depict utter multilation of the human body.