2013-56219

MARTINEZ, Corinna Victoria C.

ENGLISH 11
Frank Lloyd Tiongson

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner follows the lives of two boys, Amir and

Hassan, who grow up together in Kabul, Afghanistan. Amir is a well-off Pashtun, whose

father is a rich businessman he calls Baba. Hassan and his father, Ali, are Hazaras, and

thus work as servants for Amir and Baba. Despite their close childhood, their lives take

on two very different paths – all due to their contrasting ethnicities. Thus, Khaled

Hosseini uses their stories to explore the issue of discrimination in Afghanistan.

Ethnic discrimination: The Hazaras and the Pashtuns

Hosseini opens his novel by illustrating how the discrimination of the Hazaras is

widely accepted and practiced by the Pashtuns. The differences between these two

ethnicities have led to the designation of the Pashtuns as the majority group and the

Hazaras as the minority group. Furthermore, this discrimination has become so

engrained that it has led to the establishment of social classes. Pashtuns are superior,

while Hazaras are inferior. Amir and Baba have the opportunities to receive an

education and to establish their own business, while Hassan and Ali may only work as

servants.

The shallowness of this discrimination is portrayed by how Pashtuns

discriminate Hazaras based on the difference in their appearance. Hazaras are of Asian

descent, with “Mongoloid features” and described as “[looking] a little like Chinese
people” (9). In line with this, Pashtun children often jeer at Ali, calling him a “flat-nosed

Babalu” (9).

Another reason for the Pashtuns’ discrimination of the Hazaras is the difference

in their religion. Hazaras are Shi’a muslims, while Pashtuns are Sunni muslims. This

leads to an even deeper hostility between the two ethnicities. Amir notes how his

Pashtun teacher openly displays his disdain for the Shi’a-practicing Hazaras, observing

how the man “wrinkled his nose when he said the word Shi’a, like it was some kind of

disease” (10).

Even the Afghan educational system seems to perpetuate this discrimination.

Amir comments that in school, Hazaras are “barely mentioned” and their ancestry

“referred to […] only in passing” (9). When Amir finds a book about the Hazaras in his

mother’s old library, he sees that “the book said a lot of things [he] didn’t know, things

[his] teachers hadn’t mentioned” (10). As mentioned previously, Amir’s teacher was

blunt about his opinion toward Hazaras, despite being in front of a young and

impressionable student.

Pashtun parents as well make no move to eradicate this discrimination their

culture feels toward the Hazaras. It seems as if they have no reservations in passing this

mindset onto their children. Amir recalls how he has heard even the young

neighborhood kids hurling insults at Hassan, calling him a “mice-eating”, “flat-nosed”,

and a “load-carrying [donkey]” (10). Even Baba does not bother to explain to Amir the

situation between the two ethnic groups.

Following Baba’s example, Amir eventually develops feelings of superiority

toward the Hazaras as well. Baba and Ali grew up together as playmates, much like how

Amir and Hassan did a generation later. However, in all the stories Baba and Ali recall
about their childhood mischief, Amir notices how “in none of [Baba’s] stories did he

ever refer to Ali as his friend” (27). Amir follows suit, realizing that he has “never

thought of Hassan as friends either” (27). Despite the days and nights they have spent

talking, laughing, and playing, Amir thinks:

Never mind any of those things. Because history isn’t easy to

overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a

Hazara, I was a Sunni and he was a Shi’a, and nothing was ever going

to change that. Nothing. (27)

When Hassan points out a plot hole in a story Amir has written, “[a] voice, cold and

dark, suddenly whispered in [his] ear, What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He’ll

never be anything but a cook. How dare he criticize [him]”? Thus, Hosseini illustrates

how society, in its two basic units: school and family, continues to perpetuate

discrimination.

As the story progresses, discrimination leads to persecution. Assef, a half-

German Pashtun child and Hitler admirer, is a prime example of this. The feeling of

superiority so inculcated in him, he mentions to Amir his dream to “ask the president to

[…] rid Afghanistan of all the dirty, kasseef Hazaras.” The discrimination is so rooted in

his psyche that it has developed into hate. Assef later does the unthinkable when he and

his two friends trap Hassan in an alley. Despite his friends’ protests, calling Assef’s plan

sinful, he does not care. In his mind, Hassan and the Hazaras are worthless and must be

taught a lesson – so he persists and rapes Hassan.

Hosseini also writes about the Hazaras’ resistance yet ultimate resignation to

their fate and perceived inferiority. When Assef and his friends gang up on Hassan, they

tell him that to Amir, he is “nothing but an ugly pet” and “[to not] ever fool [himself]
and think that [he’s] something more” (79). Hassan protests, saying that he and Amir

are not slave and master but two friends. However, as Amir secretly watches Hassan’s

rape, he recognizes the look in Hassan’s eyes – “the look of the lamb” (83). Just like the

lamb slaughtered for Baba’s household in celebration of EidAl-Adha, Hassan looked as

if “[he understood and saw that his] imminent demise [was] for a higher purpose” (84).

Hazaras are portrayed as having accepted their inferiority to the Pashtuns. After

Amir and Baba flee to America, Rahim Khan is tasked to take care of their home. He

requests Hassan, now twenty-three years old and with a wife and child, to help him in

the household. Hassan rejects Rahim’s invitation for Hassan’s family to live inside the

house, saying “it was a matter of ihtiram, a matter of respect” (224). He would rather

live in small hut in the backyard, where he grew up. Though he is unsure if Amir and

Baba are still alive, he, as a Hazara servant, refuses to disrespect his Pashtun masters.

It is not just the Pashtuns of Kabul who discriminate Hazaras, but many other

Afghans as well, such as the Taliban. Rahim recalls that as the Taliban invaded

Afghanistan, they massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif. In fact, the Taliban officials

are responsible for the death of Hassan. While Rahim is away, the officials find Hassan’s

family on Baba’s property. They execute him and his wife, despite the neighbors’

testimonies that they have permission to live there. Here, Hosseini shows how

widespread the discrimination of the Hazaras is in Afghanistan.

Assef, now a Taliban leader in Kabul, devises a disturbing metaphor to describe

what he thinks the Hazaras mean to Afghanistan: “Afghanistan is like a beautiful

mansion littered with garbage, and someone has to take out the garbage” (307). He has

no shame in his mission of “ethnic cleansing” (307). Once just a young bully who hated
Hazaras and now a Taliban leader, Hosseini uses Assef to demonstrate how enduring

and intense the persecution of the Hazaras becomes as time progresses.

Despite living in America, the discrimination toward the Hazaras still persists.

When Amir brings Sohrab, Hassan’s orphaned son, to America, General Tahib exclaims:

So, Amir Jan, you’re going to tell why you have brought back this boy with

you? […] I have to deal with the community’s perception of our family.

People will ask. They will want to know why there is a Hazara boy living

with our daughter. What do I tell them? (389)

The General is an example of how people are willing to discriminate in order to protect

their reputation. He would rather have Sohrab back in Afghanistan, at risk of death,

than risk his own status in the Afghan society.

Gender discrimination

Hosseini elucidates how in Afghan culture, the reputation of a woman, either a

daughter or wife, is tied to a man’s. Baba tells Amir “the man is a Pashtun to the root.

He has nang and namoos. Nang. Namoos. Honor and pride. The tenets of Pashtun

men. Especially when it came to the chastity of a wife. Or a daughter’” (157). However,

nothing is said about how the mistakes of a man affect the women in his life. It is ironic

how women are judged by higher standards, yet are perceived as inferior to men.

Augmenting this, Soraya, Amir’s wife, explains the double standard between men

and women.

Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends

pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a goddamn

thing. Oh, they're just men having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly
 everyone is talking nang and namoos, and I have to have my face rubbed

in it for the rest of my life. (193)

Men are encouraged to go out and explore, but women are stuck within the confines of

their homes. Soraya also points out how warped it is that a man will be excused for

impregnating a woman, but the said woman will be criticized and shamed. In addition

to this, Hosseini shows how despite the Afghans’ migration to America, they retain the

views of their culture back home.

Khaled Hosseini explores the issue of discrimination in Afghanistan through the

lives of the different characters in The Kite Runner. He shows how many people are

discriminated because of circumstances they have no control over, such as the ethnic

group they are born into or their sex. Hassan is just one example of the discrimination

and persecution Hazaras face. They are belittled, mocked, and killed not for their

actions, but for merely existing. Soraya, an Afghan woman who once ran away with a

man, lives with the shame of disrespecting her father. She cannot be in peace with her

past because of the guilt she feels for dishonoring him. These two characters show how

both Hazaras and women have long been under the oppressive rule of society and

culture.

The Kite Runner illustrates how discrimination has become so widespread and,

in fact, normal because society allows it to perpetuate. Culture passes this belief down

from one generation to the next, transforming it into an intense, unwarranted, and even

violent hate in the process.

Bibliography

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.