One ancient wisdom says: “If you want to test someone, give him a power”. Nothing else can demonstrate the essence of person such as authority. Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner novel, proves the correctness of the idea of authority transformation on the intersection of religion, politics, and race in the Afghan’s modern history.
The Kite Runner tells us about dramatic period of Afghanistan history. This is not a historical book. However, the author shows the history of the one country on the life example of this country’s inhabitants. We can see how the tragedy is growing by the Assef’s life. Assef – a teenager with German mother and an Afghan father, a sadistic, bisexual rapist from Amir’s neighborhood in Kabul. Assef has sympathies for Hitler. He wants to be as his hero. He likes shedding blood. At his ages it means to be a bully in the Wazir Akbar Khan section of Kabul, to create “his well-earned reputation for savagery”. He says about Hitler: “…There was a leader. A great leader… if they had let Hitler finish what he had started, the world be a better place now” (p.39-40). As his hero, Assef creates by knuckles a “better” world, but for kids. It is very paradoxically that the afghan boy loves fascist’s dictator, who wants to kill all non-Aryan nations including Asians. How is it possible?
We can analyze that through a few peculiarities of Assef’s biography. First of all, Assef’s origin is unusual, because his mother from Germany and his father is Pashtun. Assef is very exotic for Afghanistan, like African boy in Siberia. He understands his oneness and always demonstrates that saying: “…she (mother) is German; she should know better” or walking the neighborhood “like a Khan strolling through his land”.
One more point about this monstrous kid is his youthful maximalism. Webster's New World Dictionary defines that maximalist is “a person who favors direct or revolutionary action to achieve a goal”. How does Assef do it? If he wants to give a lesson, he “pummels… poor kid unconscious” (p.38). If he wants to take revenge on Hassan, he rapes this brave Hazara boy. Everything, what Assef does, has abnormal and extremist property. Moreover, Assef has erroneous family upbringing. He grows up in atmosphere of permissiveness, which is prevailing in rich families. Also, Assef has o political view such as young rebellion ideas and nationalism. Logically, there is not his own opinion and he could hear that at his home too. Assef wants to be unusual, original and extraordinary. However and unfortunately, he moves his vision to real actions. Actually, this is a teenager’s words, but what would happen in the future? One ancient book said: “…you have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much…” (Bible, Matthew, 25:21). Later Assef becomes an executioner in the Taliban.
Lets go to the very deep question of the national idea that has the serious influence in The Kite Runner.
Look around. This is “your” country”. You love your country. Do you see any problems in your country? Do you think that your country “is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage”? Do you want to find who the cause of your problems is? There are two famous Russian questions from Nikolay Chernyshevsky: “Who is guilty?” and “What should be done?” Do you want to find an answer to them? These questions are very popular in discussions about the destiny of any country. Moreover, they are rising in discussion about political and international issues. The very popular idea is appearing always at this moment. Let us pay attention to the phenomenon of patriotism. A patriot wants only the best for his country. He declares that his country belongs to him and to people like him. Every time the question stands up: “good for my country, mine and my people’s country”. Naturally, on the earth we do not have a country with just one nation of population. It means there are many groups from other lands, nations, with different languages and races in each country. For them the idea of patriotism is not natural. “Patria” from Latin means “fatherland”. Therefore, the will of good for their current domicile is not patriotism for people who live in an alien land or country at all. For example, I was born in Ukraine and now I live in the United States. I wish happiness and wealth for people in this country, but I cannot call this wish “patriotism”. I could be very useful for this country by paying taxes and serving in the military. However, it could not be patriotism as a matter of fact. There is a will of common human values such as happiness, love, wealth, but not abstract patriotism.
What do we have in real life? The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini tells about life position, which became dominant in Afghanistan in the 1990s: “Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood…”(p.40). A patriotic teenager Assef said these words. Maybe there are not scary words, because they belong to the teenager. But after some years they become real. “Door to door we went, calling for the men and the boys. We’d shoot them right there in front of their families… You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘liberating’ until you’ve done that… knowing you are virtuous, good, and decent. Knowing you’re doing God’s work” (p.277). Assef believes that God blessed him to kill people. Assef has political power as a Talib-executioner. He works as a race cleaner. He has a “deed” in this field. There is Hazara massacre in Mazar-I-Sharif. We can see, how religion, politics, and nationalistic ideas intersect in this moral moron. During the earth’s history we see the same positions in most wars or civil conflicts. From young phrases they are growing into adult actions.
The sameness and difference between Assef’s motto and his action in the Taliban period is in his possibility and conditions such as power and authority, as well as assurance of impunity. The scale of Assef’s actions depends on his age. As a teenager Assef rapes Hassan. It is horrible, but it is very local action. It is the tragedy of one person – Hassan. Later, in the plot of history, Assef becomes an influential figure and does the unbelievable horrible things such as the Mazar-I-Sharif massacre in August 1998. He says, “I am in my element” (p.281). Assef wants to be as his hero, Hitler. He put his young age motto into practice and no one could impede him, neither in childhood nor in adult age.
The author gives us a lesson. If these horrible events and monstrous people could be in the conservative Muslim society such as Afghanistan, moreover this situation could reiterate in our modern and non-traditionalistic world. Even arming by the idea of patriotism and having the absolutely true goal, every human, an imperfective being, could repeat the Assef’s way. Everything in our human history is repeated. We should remember that the greatness is a very strong temptation to be bad.
April 2007
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