Ethnic Conflict In The Kite Runner

Much of today’s ethnic conflict can be found in the developing world, particularly on the vast continents of Africa and Asia. Within the developing world of Asia, the Middle East accounts for a large portion of conflicts based on ethnicity, kinship and religion. In Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner,” the author's demonstration of the weak and powerful in the novel is spoken to through ethnic status and religious contrasts, in which society and political powers uphold dread upon the greater part of Afghanistan.
In the 21st century, everybody today recognizes education is power; the more one knows, the more one will be able to control events - Francis Bacon. For a few centuries, the Pashtun dominant sect had regarded the Hazara population as …show more content…
Shi’a Islam is one of the minority sect in Islam. Like all Hazaras, Hassan and Ali look different than the Pashtuns, they cannot "hide" as something else. Their ethnicity is permanently imprinted as their identity. Individuals who are in the lower class are forced to work hard for what they have since, they haven't been honored with the benefit of being naturally introduced to wealth and money. This is valid for Hassan and Ali who are friends and servants to Baba and Amir. However Hassan who must stay with his father and work at Baba’s home to earn a living and isn’t able to educate himself by going to school, yet Hassan learns to appreciate life and everything that is given to him. "That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali the minute most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had been born..." (30). However, the keen Hassan later on in life realizes the power of literacy and its connection to social power that he makes sure that Sohrab can read and write and expresses his wish for Sohrab to be "Someone important." This act will mentally break down the barrier between Pashtuns and Hazaras for the best and introduce equality to both sects, but in actuality the Majority (Taliban) would never let this arise. In addition Baba, who I believe is weak in a sense even though he is a wealthy Pashtun. Baba felt guilty about not being able to call Hassan as his son, or show him as his son to Pashtun society, or else he would be publicly disgraced. The Pashtun community disgraces, people have had sexual relationships with a Hazzara, and and so Baba would have been discriminated against by his own community. In my opinion, if it was not for the discrimination against the minority Hazaras’, Amir would have been treated equally like Hassan by Baba. On the off chance that it was not for the racial and ethnic differences, Baba would have