Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Great Book...reminded me a bit of God of Small things but unique in itself...i was sobbin and cryin here and there throughout the book....although i m not sure if he exaggerated on the talibans...but hey its supposed to be fiction isnt it?!but i m sure something most people who r torn and displaced in war and unrest can relate to....and it kind of softened my presumptions on the US....oh well
Comments on this journal
And the patriarchal nature of society does not help at all. It was such a sad movie - did you watch the DVD extras at all? the actors were all real people - esp the kids. I thought that was impressive.
Secondly - it's true how we turn a blind eye to muslims committing atrocities. The taliban are a bunch of zealots committing some of the worst atrocities against muslims, and we are letting them. Have you seen Osama yet? Because only after watching a movie about it did the true nature of the taliban and the true ravages they've raged across the country really hit home to me.
Tragedy has to be made personal for it to have impact. The way to do that is through books, movies and art.
I think that is part of the reason we may be dispassionate about it - because it becomes yet another news item.
I'm a great fan of reading anything to do with 1947 and independance, I've read freebom at midnight as a teenager, etc...and knew enough intellectually, but it really hit home for me emotionally when I watched Earth 1947.
In the same way, the Kite Runner being made into a movie can only mean good things.
interesting that we're talking about shia's and sunni's. i guess the sin/atonement stuff resonates more with christians. what do you all have to say? there is a dark vacuum in my brain where i should know about islamic literature.
i read it on a cross-country flight just this morning, btw. nice story. :)
The book is beautifully written and gives us a carpet ride to the Afghanistan that once was and the Afghanistan that is today. You can almost taste and feel the happiness, the joy, the misery and heartache. It is truly a brilliant and book and completey captivating.
There is much to learn about ourselves in this book and how would we have reacted in similar situations. The book goes to the greatest depth of human emotions...Hossenini's gives us the deepest elements of his characters and this gives us the ability to apperciate what he wants us to experience.
Also, why do we think the acts of the Tablibans were exaggerated when there is ample evidence to support their behavior? It amazes me our denial at the atrocities that have happened under the Tabliban regime. Geez, why do we Muslims never wish to question acts of atrocities commited by Muslims?
My athiest Iranian friend recommended this book and considered it one of the best she had read. I never realized or knew what it was about...and I am so glad she never told me.
Also, the film is coming out next year...www.imdb.com...auditions are taking place in LA.
Take care guys.
About refugees. Banglamom?s got a point. Though Afghan refugees have spread throughout Pakistan and many have probably made it home and won?t return, there is little goodwill between the Afghans in general about Pakistan. Pakistan will always kick Afghanistan around to make sure it remains pro-Pakistan ? it always has and it always will ? the American presence is only delaying the inevitable. Pakistan plays the ?big brother? role with little shame and despite what could be considered generous assistance to landlocked Afghanistan, the big brother role is a more determinant factor in deciding the perception of the neighbor for Afghans. The perception is very very negative.
Like Khalid Hosseinin, the majority of educated, urban Afghans are Tajik and Sunni. Tajik?s normally despise Pakistan for its explicit role in promoting the Taliban and eventually murdering the great Tajik Leader Ahmed Shah Masood who kept even the Russians out of the Panjsher Valley. Being educated and urban, few Tajik?s eventually settled in Pakistan so most of the Taliban nutcase converts were of the normally illiterate Pushtun variety thereby exacerbating the divide between these two ethnic groups.
Khalid Hosseini is VERY UNLIKELY to be a Shia because: His first name is KHALID! How can anyone overlook that!
As we all know, Khalid was the great general also known as the 'Sword of Islam' during 7th century Arabia. The Caliph Omar hated his guts and twice publically humiliated him for his immoral attitude. In fact, the very first act of Omar on becoming Caliph was to kick Khalid out of the Army!
This much everyone accepts (though sunnis try to completely downplay it).
Other historians as well as Shias (perhaps with lots of bias), fill in the gaps as to what Khalid's problem was. The most extreme accounts say that he had many sexual fetishes and liked to rape the women of the defeated army on blood soaked fields to swimming in pools of wine and women to all sorts of other fantastic nonense.
More likely, Shias were unhappy at the defeat of those Arab tribes that refused to accept Abu Bakr as Caliph. They wanted Ali to be the leader. Abu Bakr had sent Khalid who whoop the renegad tribes into submission.
Anyway, just as you won't find a Shia female with the name 'Aisha', you rarely find a Shia male with the name 'Khalid'!
History can be so cool!
1) Pashtun
2) Tajik
4) Hazara
5) Uzbek
Of these, I think only the Hazara are predominantly Shia (there are only two Shia tribes among the Pashtuns - Orakzai and another which I forget).
Khalid Hosseini is probably a Tajik - based purely on the assumption that 1) Hosseini is not a Pashtun name and secondly, most of the literate folks in Afghanistan (and many of the Afghans in the Bay Area I met) are Tajiks. Tajiks speak an older version of the Persian dialect and only a minority are Shias (many of these are Ismailis).
Though none of this matters, it is always cool to delve into!
Anyway, my rant, continue on. assalam alaikum.
Ultimately, I think any discussion about ethnic roots feeds into what the book was about too doesn't it?
Its true Pakistan has done alot for them. They have treated Afghanis as one of their own. Even tho' most of Pakistan is in poverty , refugees have free health care and equal employment opportunities as well.
I won't deny this. I got a little teary eyed and actually shouted, 'no' when something happened to Hassan and his wife later on.
I did wonder too whether the author exxagerated about the taliban. Granted, the tallitubbies turned into idiots but there are a lot of tribal rivalries giong on in afghanistan.
For example, the Taliban belong to the Pashtun tribe which resides in the south of Afgnaistan, close to Pakistan. The Pashtuns are sunni muslims. And sunni shia trouble does go on.
The northern and western regions are non-pashtun and associated with ex soviets states or Iran. Iran is a shia country and in the past fights between the mujahideen or the talbian-northern alliance has supported the shia factions.
The Hosseini in Khalid Hosseini makes me think whether he's a shia. And many shias will feel an association with Iran, even if they aren't of that nationality.
So, as biased as it may sound coming from me, there may be water to the argument that the writer too may have suffered from a shianic frustration.
It may also explain his comment on Pakistan being a terrible place for a refugee. This considering that Pakistanis have been the most hospitable to the Afghan refugees.
But a great great book. One of the best I've read in a long time.
Umer M.