Saving Fish from Drowning

Amy Tan's book by that title is about a dilemma: should a group of tourists kidnapped by Burmese tribesmen, who have mistaken one of them for the "messiah" promised to them by their legends, give up their attempts to escape because the tribe that has kidnapped them is being hunted by government troops and will most likely be found and imprisoned or killed if the tourists leave the tribe's hiding place? In the beginning, the tourists are unaware that they have been kidnapped, thinking, instead, that a bridge that is the only way into the tribe's hiding place has collapsed and cut them off from the outside world. The bridge hasn't collapsed, the tribesmen have made it inaccessible to outsiders, and are able to raise it whenever they want to leave or enter the hiding place. Since the tourists don't know that the tribespeople are actually criminals, who have violated their human right to self-determination, they become fond of them, and even after discovering that they are the victims of a crime, one punishable by death in some places, they devise a plan to protect the criminals when they make their escape. Of course, the tourists were never obligated to give a rat's ass about the motherf*ckers who abducted them, in one case endangering the life of their guide, who is an epileptic and needs daily medication, and if they had known from the outset that they were the victims of a crime, there would have been no reluctance to see the criminals get what was coming to them. Ms. Tan, you're a genius! I'd nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize, but I'm nobody special, and besides, the parasites would probably make you give the money to one of their bullsh*t "causes.!"