Hi everyone,
In this video I will talk about the Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini and explain the
Hazara-Pashtun conflict and why this novel has a major flaw that nobody really is talking about.
First let me summarise the story. Two teenage boys are at the heart of
this story. During a kite flying contest in Kabul in the 1970s,
Hasan a servant boy from Hazara ethnic group helps Amir an affluent Pashtun
to win, but later that day Amir watches some Pashtun boys rape Hasan due to his ethnicity.
Amir is too scared to help, but he carries this guilt for 30 years. He moves to America,
builds a life there, gets married but this guilt remains inside despite him trying to forget it.
When he gets a phone call from an old friend, he has no choice but to confront his past by
returning to the country to rescue Hasan’s son a little boy called Sohrab to atone his betrayal.
The story is very uplifting. It’s about being true to yourself. You should confront your past
mistakes. In that sense it is a powerful tale of a hero’s internal journey in three stages: mistake,
guilt and redemption. I teared up many times as I read it. It is a deeply emotional novel,
beautifully told and the language very simple. If one analyses it more closely,
it is too melodramatic and over-simplistic but that doesn't stop the reader enjoying the novel.
The internal conflict of Amir drives the main plot but the conflict between Hazaras and Pashtuns,
the two ethnic group is central to the story. In order to understand this novel,
it’s critical to understand the socio-cultural background to the story.
I think the Kite runner has a major flaw when it comes to depicting this ethnic conflict.
Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country, with 4 major ethnic groups. The population is about 40%
Pashtun mostly in the south and east, represented by colour orange, 25% Tajik, 15% Hazara mostly
in central Afghanistan represented by colour blue and 10% Uzbek. The number of Hazaras is disputed,
so some estimates puts them 10% and some 19% of the, so I have put them about 15% as a middle
ground. Two main languages in Afghniastan with 50% of the population speaking Persian, 40% Pashto
and 10% Uzbeki (a turkic language). Afghanistan is a Muslim country with 80% Sunni and 20% shia.
Now if we compare Hazara and Pashtun side by side, we understand the socio-culture
root of the conflict. Pashtuns are Sunni as is 80% of the country’s population.
Global Muslim population is also said to be 85% Sunni. And Hazaras on the other hand are the de
facto Shia group in the country, which is quite an anomaly. It was the Iranian Safavid King who is
said to have converted the Hazaras to Shia Islam in the 16th century. Successive Pashtun kings and
the Taliban justified their attack on the Hazaras based on religion as they saw them as heretics.
Still Hazaras are targeted by the ISIS and Taliban specifically for the same reason.
Another major difference between Pashtun and Hazara is their look.
Hazaras with more Asiatic features, appear to be more Mongolian-Turkic mixture, with narrower eyes,
larger cheekbones, smaller nose and generally smaller stature. Pashtuns on the other hand blend
in with the Tajiks, Iranians and Pakistanis and other South Asians and Middle-eastersn.
This has led many Pashtun rulers to believe that Hazaras don't belong in the country.
Some suggests that Pashtun kings and the Taliban used religious heresy as an excuse for their
racist agenda to massacre Hazaras. As we can see, in the Kite Runner, race plays a central role,
as all the insults are about Hasan’s facial feature, such as flat nose. The character of
Asef as an Aryan Nazi supremacist is prominent in the story, who bizarrely becomes a Taliban
member at the end. Quite Hollywoody, and I think Hosseini always had American audience in mind.
A third difference, perhaps, as important as race and religion is the language. Hazaras along with
50% of the population speak Dari which is the same as Persian or Farsi in Iran, while Pashtuns speak
Pashto. Dari also functions a lingua franca in major cities, so as much as 80% of the population
speak it pushing Pashto as a minority language, except in the south. Dari and Pashto are like
French and English, close but not close enough. This too has fuelled the conflict as Hazaras and
Pashtuns cannot effectively communicate with each other. It’s harder to fight with someone who you
can talk to. In the novel, Hassan’s favourite book is the Persian epic tale of Shahnameh written in
10th century by Ferdowsi. Nowadays, Persian-Pashto is a really hot topic in Afghanistan as
Pashtuns feel threatened by the dominance of Persian, like the French speakers in Canada.
Now despite those social-cultural differences, I think it is history that is at the heart of
this conflict. With the help of the British, the Pashtun king Abdur Rahman carried out genocide
of the Hazaras in 1890s, wiping as much as 60% of Hazara population. Some fled to Pakistan. To this
day, there is a large community in Quetta who are also under attack by Sunni extremist groups
in Pakistan. 100 years later in 1990s the Taliban also Pashtun massacred Hazaras. Even now the ISIS
routinely target Hazaras. Having said that, this conflict isn’t an all-out war. For the
most part Hazaras and Pashtuns get on well. It’s always been the rulers who exploited the ethnic,
religious and linguistic differences for their own benefits. For the most part anyway.
How about other ethnic groups? Well, since they are all Sunni Muslims, they have morally
supported the Pashtuns against Hazaras. But in recent years loyalties have shifted around.
For instance Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras united against the Taliban. But Tajiks and Hazaras
have also clashed in the past due to racial and religious differences, but since they speak the
same language, Persian, it is easier to get along than fight. Uzbeks too being a Turkic minority
felt racially close to Hazaras but their religious loyalties tend to be with the Sunni Pashtuns.
All these ethnic groups have a country outside Afghanistan that back them, perhaps mostly
morally, not financially. Pashtuns have Pakistan, Tajiks have Tajikistan, and Uzbeks have Uzbekistan
and Turkey, while Hazaras don't have a country called Hazarastan that can support them, but
traditionally were allied with Iran both being Shia Muslims. However Hazaras being of Mongolian
descent, the whole Islamic region see them as the sons of Genghis Khan, the man who destroyed
Islamic Golden Age. There might be an underlying mistrust of the Hazaras among Iranians too.
The Kite Runner depicts Hazaras as passive, submissive and with a physical disability,
Hassan’s harelips, Ali’s lame leg, and Hazaras’ flat nose. So two things stand out, their physical
shortcomings and their mental submissiveness. In other words, Hazara characters are mostly
flat while Pashtun characters, especially Amir, Baba and Rahim Khan are all round,
i.e. capable of change as they betray, reflect and redeem themselves. While Ali and Hassan toil on
without complaint, with the naivety, honesty of a child. They put up with their terrible world.
Now, the question is, are Hazaras like Hosseini portrays them? Victims, submissive,
and physically disabled? The answer is no. In 19th century they staged many uprisings,
In 1933 Khaliq a Hazara assassinated the Pashtun king for undoing the reforms of the previous king
had achieved in modernising Afghanistan. In 1980s there was a Hazara prime minister. Even in 1970s,
the setting of this novel, Hazaras were in constant battle with the central
government over taxation and Hazaras were prominent in the leftist movement in Kabul.
Khalid Hosseini himself a Pashtun or half Pashtun brought the plight of the Hazaras to the fore,
which is commendable. Now more people are aware of their persecution.
But his clumsy characterisation of them as papercut cartoons, somewhat stifled their voices,
and made them victims. Throughout the novel, I found no voice of dissent
by a Hazara against their plight. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that Khalid
Husseini himself carries subconscious bias or perhaps he was trying to weave a fairy-tale.
For a novel three elements are essential: reader, subject and author. When the subject
is real people but not familiar to the reader, the author has a duty to portray the subject as
accurately as possible. Otherwise he is creating a false picture.
Most western readers took what was on the pages of the Kite Runner as truth and saw
Hassan and Ali representing their Hazara community in being submissive victims.
Some newspapers even suggested that Hazaras were a lower caste in Afghanistan. Hazaras
throughout its history has had rich and poor, nobility and peasants. Simply being a Hazara,
despite putting you at a disadvantage, didn't automatically made you a lower class.
If one writes about women or depict black characters as nothing but submissive victims,
publishers as well as readers would see through the badly drawn characters
and too simplistic plot. But when it comes to the
Pashtun-Hazara conflict too unknown for the audience it was intended.
Hazaras are proud people but in the novel, according to Mohamad Mohammadi a famous
novelist in Afghanistan, they saw themselves nothing but submissive and physically disabled,
which is a mis-representation. In Jane Eyre, the mad woman in the attic, has no
voice and no chance to tell her story, which was rectified by Jean Rhys a 100 years later
In Wide Saragossa Sea to tell her side and how colonialism characterised her as other.
Pity and sympathy are very distinct. Most Hazaras felt the subject of pity in this book. We feel
sympathy towards Amir for his courage to confront his past. But Ali and Hassan’s stories break your
heart, they’re too good, too selfless. Talking to readers, I can see that most people pitied the
Hazaras. Their situation portraited so bad that made it unimaginable. Perhaps it wasn't Hosseini’s
intention to depict Hazaras as victims, but it does appear that he is boasting the Pashtun’s
status as the dominant group, especially the character Baba whom I actually disliked the most.
Having said that, I enjoyed reading it. I teared up a few times. As a Hazara myself, I still love
this book despite its shortcomings. I guess a work of literature has to be judged on its emotional
and social merits. It surpasses in its emotional impact but doesn't deliver on its social impact.
This doesn't mean one shouldn't tackle social issues in a novel. But if you cannot captures
the essence of the situation you leave the reader to do everything. Perhaps that’s too
much. It’s the author’s job to do due diligence to fight his or her own prejudices and bias.
It appears Hosseini rushed in writing this novel. He published it two years
after September 11 and American attack on the Taliban in 2001. if you look closely,
the plot of this story is very similar to the American’s involvement in Afghanistan. The CIA
created the Taliban and Al Qaida in the 1980s to fight the USSR, a mistake they understood 20 years
later when they bombed New York twin towers. Then the Americans returned in 2001 to rectify their
mistake by toppling the Taliban, the monster the CIA had helped to create. Amir betrays his friend
in 1970s and returns in 2001 to amend his mistake by rescuing and bringing the victim’s child to
America. I think Hosseini’s parallel story is a deliberate choice and made the story an easier
sale for the American publishers as it fitted the mood of the American people as the good guys.
I hope I haven’t been too negative. As I said I love this book, so I made this video to clarify
the cultural background to the story. I hope it helps you have a better understanding of the
book. I think only readers can decide whether Hazaras are the subject of pity or sympathy
in the Kite Runner. Let me know how you felt about the Hazaras while reading it. Thank you!