The 1960’s Kabul of Khaled Hosseini’s childhood was a far cry from what we know of it today. When King Zahir Shah took power in 1933, he pushed Afghanistan into modernization, building a professional army, its first bank, first university and first airline. Schools for girls opened, including The Women’s Institute. Graduate studies for law, science and literature were also established. In 1964, he introduced a new constitution, making Afghanistan a democratic state with free elections and equal rights for women. He sanctioned freedom of the press and religious tolerance, and reduced capital punishment.
So the 60’s especially became a time of advancement in art, architecture and education. Kabul University expanded its economics, pharmacy and industrial management programs. The Polytechnic University, the American International School, and the University Library opened in new modern buildings. Women pursued careers in medicine and design. They wore mini-skirts out in the streets, and debated politics and democracy. At that time, there were more women in their parliament than in the US Congress. Kabul was fast becoming a new cosmopolitan tourist city for Westerners. It was nicknamed the “Paris of Central Asia.”
It was just like in The Kite Runner, where childhood friends Amir’s and Hassan’s favorite tradition is the tournament every winter. In the 1960’s the only wars they knew of were with kites. The sidewalks and rooftops of Kabul would fill with cheering spectators until the very last kite was cut and “kite-runners” chased the fallen ones, collecting them like trophies. From what he remembers from his own childhood, Hosseini wrote about families and tourists picnicking on the banks of Ghargha Lake and the gardens of Phagman on the weekends, bazaars that were full and colorful, nomads and women who roamed free. There were clubs, cabarets, backyard parties, and his characters drank scotch and whiskey, albeit in private.
Fastforward to December 27, 1979, when Soviet tanks invaded those same streets. After King Shah was deposed in 1973, Muslim and Communist factions in the Afghan government fought for control. When the president was murdered along with his family, nothing but violence followed. It was the beginning of the end, as 10-year-old Amir describes it in The Kite Runner –
The shootings and explosions frightened us badly because none of us had ever heard gunshots in the streets. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs was not yet born.
Soon, bands of mujahideen (“holy warriors” for Islam) formed in opposition. Most came from refugee camps and were financed by the US and Arab countries to fight the Soviets. Afghanistan became a battleground both in the book and real life. Under cover of night and hidden in a wagon, Amir’s family flees first into Peshawar, in Pakistan, then to the US. Similarly, Hosseini’s family applied for and was granted asylum in the US.
But the war raged on in Afghanistan – the Soviet-backed Afghan army on one side and the mujahideen resistance on the other. In the 1980’s, thousands of volunteers joined the mujahideen, among them – Osama Bin Ladin.
New and better weapons were funnelled through Pakistan from the US and Saudi Arabia. Despite UN efforts and peace accords, the fighting continued. Afghan soldiers defected, the military dropped from 100,000 to 20,000, the Afghan government completely collapsed, and the Soviet Union fell in 1992. Different mujahideen factions then fought each other for power. Armed with US rockets and Russian Kalashnikovs, they taxed, kidnapped and killed civilians for money and for game. In The Kite Runner, a friend describes it to Amir –
You practically needed a visa to go from one neighborhood to the other. So people just stayed put, prayed the next rocket wouldn’t hit their homes. People knocked holes so they could bypass the streets. In other parts, people moved about in underground tunnels.
When one mujahideen group, the Taliban, emerged in 1994, promising peace and security, the war-weary Afghan people were happy to surrender.
People were celebrating, greeting the Taliban in the streets, climbing their tanks and posing for pictures with them. People were so tired of the constant fighting.
The Taliban (meaning students) is a Pashtun-dominated faction who recruited members from madrasah schools teaching a fundamentalist form of Islam. They quickly gained control of 90% of Afghanistan. Their rule was nothing but brutal and disenfranchised the Hazara minority even more.
They imposed a strict interpretation of Sharia law. People were executed in public, adulterers were stoned to death, thieves had their hands cut off. They banned music, television, film, schools for girls, and kite fighting. Women had to be completely covered in a burqa and accompanied by a male. They looted museums, destroyed libraries of ancient texts, and bombed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. They tried to obliterate an entire culture.
In the book, Amir returns to Kabul to visit a dying friend. It is 2001. Buildings have become sand and rubble. Children are begging for food and change. Very few women are out in the streets, all clad in burqas. Armed Taliban are on patrol everywhere, beating men and women for so much as talking too loud or staring. Everyone lives in terror.
The Kite Runner was published in 2003 but eerily resonant today as we watch city after city fall to the Taliban once again. This should be a lesson and a warning. History really does repeat itself.
