I have been reading The Kite Runner, a novel written by Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of two Afghani boys: Amir, the son of a well-to-do Pashtun businessman and Hassan, the son of a Hazara servant.
Broadly speaking, the story is an extraordaniry tale of love and hate, betrayal and trust, betrayal and forgiveness. It is the story if two boys, each from a different clan or sect. It is the story of us versus them, of me versus you, of the shiite Hazara versus the Sunni Pashtun. I find the story inspiring in the way it evokes the power of love to help people forgive and forget and shattering in the way it evokes the power of self-hate to inflict harm upon others.
The way I see it, the story is not only of two boys- each belonging to a particular sect. The story is about Afghanistan rising and then made to kneel and then rising again, and so on and so forth. The story, so to speak, is about the phoenix bird rising from the ashes, only to be reduced to ashes again in a never ending process of death and life.
