A Study of Prejudice against Religious Beliefs as Illustrated in Khaled Hosseini’s Book, The Kite Runner

The novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini discusses alienation, and it reveals that the bigotry and disparity in between different religious beliefs and ethnic/ physical features of groups of individuals are normally a direct reflection of the cultural, social, and financial circumstances of the surrounding society. Hosseini’s perform discusses the notion of ethnic discrimination in Afghanistan by continuously reminding the readers of the rigid divide in treatment amongst the Pashtun and Hazara folks. Afghans who classify themselves as Hazara practice an Islamic sect, and face intolerance as Shi’a Muslims. This group of Muslims are considered minorities among Afghanistan’s majority Islamic faction, Sunni Muslims. Amir, the primary protagonist in this novel, practices Sunni Islam, although his ideal friend, Hassan, is a Shi’a Muslim. Throughout the story, Hassan experiences an exorbitant quantity of discrimination, oppression, and hardship simply simply because of his unpopular religious views and ethnicity, and it at some point reaches a point where this said oppression seemingly has no limit and no finish in sight. Adversity continuously weighs on Hassan as a result of uncontrollable conditions, and the torment he faces whilst living in Afghanistan depicts each the society’s moral values and additional explains the prejudice he endures on a daily basis. The most authentic and vulnerable evidence of not only Hassan’s hardship and suffering, but that of most Hazara Afghan men and women, derives from two of Hassan’s life altering moments: his rape and his death.

Although each Shia and Sunni Muslims are subsections of Islam that share vast similarities, both groups possess a seemingly unreasonable quantity of hatred for the other. Even at a young age, Afghani kids know the distinction in between majority and minority, and their social and cultural assumptions of the minority Islamic faction outcome in absolutely nothing but violence— physical, emotional, and otherwise. Bullied by a young Pashtun (Sunni Muslim), Assef, as a kid, Hassan speedily learns that “religion plays an critical role in numerous [Afghan] lives” (AmirDabbaghian and Solimany 2). In Kabul, Afghanistan, house of each Hassan and Amir, children participate in “kite fights”, where kites soar via the skies in masses— their strings coated in small bits and shards of glass, ready to reduce away at the string of an opponent’s kite. When a kite’s string is cut, the wind carries it away, and other children chase soon after it to collect the prize they are subsequently named kite runners. Hassan functions as Amir’s kite runner, and during a tournament exactly where Amir cuts the final kite in the sky, Hassan dashes soon after it, only to quickly be cornered in a grimy alley by Assef and his friends. What follows suit is sadistic and an act of absolute degradation, and by means of Assef’s unwarranted rape of Hassan, readers witness that to many Shi’a Muslims, “oppression [became] virtually ritualistic” in Afghan culture (Hosseini and Jones 3). This undesired and aggressive incursion upon Hassan additional defines the hatred-fueled separation and oppression of the Hazara Afghans. A society in which a youngster rapes another child with the sole justification of religious hatred is presumptively on a dark path to financial, social, and cultural turmoil. As a result of absolutely nothing but his ethnicity and religious preference, Hassan is alienated from groups of kids his age, and acts as a transparent demonstration of Afghanistan’s close to-arbitrary assumptions and hatred of minority Islamic classes. Eventually, due to the escalating agitation and frailty of the whole country, the Taliban comes to power, rising already-present threats to minority groups, murdering ladies and young children, and presently displaying that “the tribe-primarily based racism that motivated Assef’s attack [on Hassan]…is for Hosseini the important to Afghanistan’s self-destruction” (Conlogue 2).

Amir and his father, Baba, leave their home for Hassan to sustain when they depart to the United States for better social and financial possibilities. In the course of this time, the Taliban obtains an exorbitant quantity of authority throughout Afghanistan by means of violence, utter tyranny, and the continued hatred and opposition of specific Muslim sects. Hassan, now an adult, spends most days maintaining to himself in the household residence, but the tranquility of his nearly reclusive life-style is soon disrupted by a modest clan of Taliban members who arrive on his street, loaded weapons in tote. Understanding that Hassan is not the owner of Amir’s residence, they rip him out of the residence and demand answers to why he, a Shi’a, is residing in the residence of Sunni Muslims, and eventually, Hassan loses his life in that moment to the Taliban’s unrequited, deeply rooted hatred for minorities and desire to complete a approach of “ethnic cleansing by way of religion” (Hosseini 134). Hazaras are profoundly discriminated against, and as a result of the “political adjust all through the book [that] influenced individuals in Afghanistan”, no Muslims, Shi’a or Sunni, are prepared to step forward and defend Hassan in the final moments just before his sadistic, baseless, public execution (AmirDabbaghian and Solimany 1). Plenty of Afghan people realize that this unlikely circumstance is absolutely nothing more than murder through unsolicited hatred and, consequently, an act of pure injustice, but not a single soul dared to “risk something for [a] … Hazara servant” (Hosseini 104). If Hassan have been a Sunni Muslim, the possibility of his fate remaining identical would considerably lower the reality that his life is ripped out of his hands and completely disposed of in a matter of seconds is deplorable, and the thought that he would nonetheless be alive if he had been not a minority is sickening and a genuine representation of the chaotic society that bigoted views and assumptions generate.

The fundamental alienation and intolerance of Shi’a Muslims in Afghanistan perpetuates an ideology of normality with regards to bigotry. Particularly, Hassan’s rape and eventual death are both outcomes of the intense oppression he battles from other Afghans who practice the majority, or favored, Islamic sect. It is just assumed that due to ethnic background or religious preference, an accurate, tangible assumption of an whole group of people can be created, although this is far from the truth. Hassan does practically nothing but openly accepts his fate as a Hazara, speedily learning at a young age that other people around him will perpetually view him as wildly a lot more expendable than a Pashtun. The complexity and terminal anguish of his narrative reveals the hatred-infused ideologies that drive deep into the chaotic core of Afghanistan’s culture. Ideas of bigotry and constant alienation are not frowned upon by most, for they are not openly discussed or acknowledged ⎯ as an alternative, they act as a driving force in both the life of Hassan’s character and a reader’s overall perception of the society which surrounds him.