Pashtuns In The Kite Runner

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There are many reasons why the Hazaras and Pashtuns in Afghanistan are so different. The conflict between both these groups has been occurring since the founding of Afghanistan in 1747 (DeRosa). The Pashtuns have always put themselves above the Hazaras making them lower class citizens. Pashtuns follow Sunni Muslim and have 42 million people living in Afghanistan. The Taliban is mostly made up of Pashtuns (DeRosa). Amir and Baba are both Pashtuns and live a wealthy lifestyle. The Hazaras are a race of Mongol origin. There is a rough estimate of six to ten million Hazaras living in Afghanistan (DeRosa). The Hazaras practice Shiite Muslim. A Muslim is a person who practices Islam. The Hazaras also look like a Mongol or Chinese (DeRosa). Today, …show more content…

Amir and Baba are rich Pashtuns living Kabul. They live with their servants Hassan and Ali, who are both Hazaras. The Pashtuns around Amir put themselves on a higher social class, making the Hazaras the lower class. This makes Amir look at Hassan as only a servant, not a friend. When Assef is telling Amir why Hassan should not be his friend, he says, “We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here… They dirty our blood” (Hosseini 44). Assef believes Hitler is an exceptional leader because he brutally murdered Jewish people. Hitler wanted the perfect race, the Aryan race (blonde hair and blue eyes). Assef wants Afghanistan’s leader to make the Pashtuns the perfect race. Assef wants a leader to kill the Hazaras just like Hitler did. Assef and his friends do not see Hassan as an equal. The day Hassan gets raped Assef tells his friends, “It’s just a Hazara” (75). Assef does not look at Hassan as a person, but as an animal. If Hassan was not a Hazara, he would not have been raped. Assef accuses Amir of befriending a Hazara and Amir almost says, “He’s not my friend...He’s my servant” (41). Amir starts to view Hassan as only a servant, not his friend. Amir only needs Haasan to play when he is not at school. The society of Kabul makes it easy to make Hazaras minorities and treat them with no