In the Shadow of the Rising Sun

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Ipak, osim malih epizoda sa lokalnim stanovništvom koji na neki način predstavljaju glavne sporedne likove, glavni lik jeste Afrika sa svom svojom florom, faunom i kulturom. Kroz ovih tristotinak strana saznaćemo na koji način lavovi love, gde slonovi umiru, kako se ubijaju kobre na koje meštani naleću svakodnevno, kao i to u šta veruju i kako se dele. Zaista jedan neverovatan način da upoznamo kulturu koja nam nije toliko bliska.

There's a certain stereotype of the British in Singapore in the '30s and early '40s, which Olga Morris - Henderson as she is now - definitely did not fit. Her family was not part of the privileged Raffles Hotel set, with their big houses and servants. Her father worked in construction, building roads, the city's hospital and a mosque. Olga and her siblings grew up in Johor Bahru, a diverse part of Malaya just across the causeway from Singapore, amongst children of all faiths and cultures, who played together without a thought to race or class. It was a very happy upbringing. Olga Henderson is a COFEPOW member who has supported the charity for many years. Now in her nineties, she is finding life increasingly trying as she suffers with failing sight. Nevertheless, after much encouragement, Olga agreed to write her book which was launched in July of this year, and is entitled ‘ In the Shadow of the Rising Sun - Surviving a Prisoner of War Childhood’ .Once in Changi, Olga and her friends bravely raided the vegetable plot, dodging the searchlights. In the middle of the family’s time in captivity, her younger brother was moved to the men’s camp, and suffered cruelty that scarred him for the rest of his life. Besides being an account of the events, it was an interesting study of human behaviour, of the importance of leadership in the form of the: and oppression. Olga and her friends bravely raided the vegetable plot; "dodging the searchlights" and sometimes enduring severe punishments. She stood alongside the other women and children through the ordeal of Tenko in the blazing sun. They were used as slave labour. Halfway through their captivity, Olga's ten-year-old brother William was put into the men's camp, where he suffered terribly cruelty that scarred him for life. In February 1942, Olga Morris was a nine-year-old girl living with her family in Singapore when the city fell to Japan’s Imperial Army. Bombs were falling as they tried to evacuate the city by a British ship, only to be refused at the gangway. The next three years were spent living in captivity in the Changi Prison, and with it, went her childhood and innocence. Her family had not been part of the privileged ‘Raffles Hotel set’, with a big house and servants. Her father worked in construction, building roads and hospitals. Olga and her siblings grew up in Johor Bahru, a diverse part of Malaya just across the causeway from Singapore, amongst children of all faiths and cultures, without a thought to race or class. It was a very happy upbringing.

Goodreads changed my experience with this book. For much of the time I was reading it, I was mesmerized by the writing, flabbergasted by some of the information about Africa, and convinced I was encountering the continent in a nuanced and subtle and authentic manner. I planned to give a copy to my husband for his birthday and to recommend it to my book group. What could be more normal then for it to be found prominently on the national flag ! Officially adopted in 1870, this white flag with a red disc in its center is called Hi no maru (Sun Disc Flag). You are now ready to admire a sunrise in the archipelago! There are so many lovely passages that i could just lift sentences and phrases from almost every chapter but that would be to fragment what is a really lovely creation, someone described it as a mosaic and that is a great image. For him Africa is ever alert to its chance for change and growth and so maybe the very last paragraph is a wonderful clarion call of hope and a good quotation on which to finish This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there –about encounters with them, and time spent together.’Most fundamental, however, are the political weaknesses of the system. It is in the basic political inheritance of America, reflected in the very design of the Constitution and the long dominance of Jeffersonian individualism over Hamiltonian statism, that we must locate the roots of American impotence in the face of Japan's challenge. The Japanese were ten miles away. Olga's mother grabbed the family photograph album and they ran... Three years of captivity followed. The population of Africa was a gigantic, matted, crisscrossing web, spanning the entire continent and in constant motion, endlessly undulating, bunching up in one place and spreading out in another, a rich fabric, a colourful arras.” - Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun A book like this would normally I would have imagined taken me very little time to read because I would devour it in a binge of gulpings and swallowings but it took me a good deal longer. In part, for the simple reason that I was taken up with other things and couldn't find the freedom to absorb myself in his world as I would have liked but also for the equally simple but at the same time profound reason that there was just too much to take in. I found this book to be a surprisingly absorbing read. For all book lovers, there is one sentence in this book that will resonate: