[Borges]

Check “Bridge over the River Kwai” where the honorable British commander, who’s men were being murdered by the Japanese in a disgraceful fashion, yet still resisted, was presented as a collaborator.

'Kwai' was more ambigious than that. By the end, it's not clear who was in the right.

[donmeaker]

The ambiguity was the lie. The reality pitted brutal Japanese committing war crimes against honorable captured soldiers. The soldiers continued to resist by badly mixing concrete, and gathering termites from the jungle and placing them on the wooden support structures.

The author of the book got his notion of collaboration from French officers, and transplanted it to the British for shock effect.