The Kite Runner

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The Kite Runner
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Afghanistan

• Islamic Republic
• Hamid Karzai- President since December 7, 2004
• Elected directly by the people
• Independence August 19, 1919 from UK

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Afghanistan

• Afghanistan is a landlocked country, making the
  export of goods difficult and expensive.
• It has rugged mountains and plains and is prone
  to natural disasters such as earthquakes and
  drought.
• Temperatures are extreme, as hot as 120 F in
  the summer and as cold as -15 F in the winter.
• There are limited natural fresh water sources,
  and most of the land has been overgrazed and
  deforested, causing desertification and soil
  degradation, making farming difficult.

Slightly smaller than Texas
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Afghanistan History and Facts

• Ahmad Shah Durrani unified the Pashtun tribes and
  founded Afghanistan in 1747.
• The country served as a buffer between the
  British and Russian empires until it won
  independence from British control in 1919.
• Referred to as a goat between two lions.
• The Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support the
  Afghan Communist party but withdrew 10 years
  later under relentless pressure by
  internationally supported anti-Communist
  mujahedin (holy warrior) rebels.

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• A civil war between mujahedin factions erupted
  following the 1992 fall of the Communist regime.
• The Taliban, a hardline Pakistani-sponsored
  movement that emerged in 1994 to end the
  country's civil war, seized Kabul in 1996,
  promising traditional, Islamic values and
  imposing strict Islamic law, including revoking
  many womens rights..
• Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist
  attacks, a US, Allied, and Northern Alliance
  military action toppled the Taliban for
  sheltering Osama bin Laden. US forces are still
  there.
• On December 7, 2004, Hamid Karzai became the
  first democratically elected president of
  Afghanistan. The National Assembly was
  inaugurated on 19 December 2005.

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Afghan Countryside
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• Population 31,056,997 (July 2006 est.)
• Life expectancy at birth total population
  43.34 years male 43.16 years female 43.53
  years (2006 est.)
• Total fertility rate 6.69 children
  born/woman (2006 est.)
• Ethnic groups Pashtun 42, Tajik 27, Hazara
  9, Uzbek 9, Aimak 4, Turkmen 3, Baloch 2,
  other 4
• Religions Sunni Muslim 80, Shi'a Muslim
  19, other 1

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Pashtun largest ethnic group, mostly farmers and
Sunni Muslims Tajik live mostly in the
northeast, second largest ethnic group, mostly
Sunni Muslims Hazara live in the Hindu Kush
mountains, primarily Shiite Muslims Uzbek live
mostly along the northern border, mostly Sunni
Muslims Aimaqs a farming and herding tribe in
the west, mostly Sunni Muslims Turkmen and
Kirghiz nomadic herders and craftsmen, mostly
Sunni Muslims Baluch nomadic tribe living in
the southern deserts, Sunni Muslims
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• Literacy total population 36 male 51
  female 21 (1999 est.)
• GDP - per capita (PPP) 800 (2004 est.)
• Economy dependent on foreign aid, farming, opium
  and trade with neighbors
• Unemployment rate 40 (2005 est.)
• Population below poverty line 53 (2003)
• Climate arid to semiarid cold winters and
  hot summers
• Terrain mostly rugged mountains plains in
  north and southwest

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The Afghan people are some of the poorest in the
world and are members of many different ethnic
groups. This woman is part of a herding tribe
and is drying dung to use as insulation in her
home during the winter. Life is difficult for
most Afghans as they have faced drought, famine
and war for many years
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Kabul City, 1960s
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After 24 years of war, much of Kabul lies in
ruins. -June 2003
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Issues

• Damaging earthquakes, Flooding Droughts
• War continues
• Has 200,000-300,000 displaced people due to
  drought and war
• Has serious illegal drug production problem--1
  in opium production which makes heroin

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Islam

• Islam is the worlds second largest religion,
  with 21 of all people practicing this faith.
• Islam teaches that one can only find peace in
  life by submitting to Allah (Almighty God) in
  heart, soul, and deed.
• The Quran is the holy guide to Islam.
• Major aspects of the Islamic religion include
  testimony of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving,
  and pilgrimage.
• Covering is a religious duty. Women can only
  have their faces and hands showing in public.
  Men must not expose anything from navel to knee.
• Sunni and Shia are the two most common forms of
  Islam with different beliefs in some of the
  specific premises of the religion.
• One of the main distinctions between Sunni and
  Shiite faiths is that Shiites follow a
  religious leader called an imam, who is regarded
  as Mohammeds successor and an intermediary
  between Allah and the faithful.
• To calculate the Islamic year, subtract 621 years
  from the western Gregorian calendar date. For
  example 2003 621 1382

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Taliban
Prior to 2001, the Taliban, led by Mullah
Mohammad Omar, ruled Afghanistan under Islamic
law. During this time, women had virtually no
rights and received no education. Watching
television and listening to music were forbidden,
as were playing games and sports. The United
States entered Afghanistan in October 2001 and
replaced the Taliban with an elected president.
While the Taliban lost some power and the people
regained some rights, the Taliban has not gone
away. Instead, it has worked to regain power by
promising to help Afghanistans poorest people
and aligning itself with warlords, al-Qaida, and
other militant groups to gain financial support
and recruit new fighters.
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President Hamid Karzai was the first elected
president in the history of Afghanistan. He came
to power after the Taliban was overthrown in late
2001. He was formally elected to a five-year
term in 2004. Karzai has survived numerous
assassination attempts and has been assigned the
task of rebuilding Afghanistan. Some of the
major problems he must address include providing
the country with an infrastructure so that
citizens have the basic necessities of life,
keeping the Taliban out of power and controlling
the warlords who perpetuate the illegal drug
trade.
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FAMILY LIFE
Afghans usually live in extended families headed
by an elder male, who together with other males
has formal authority over the family. People
usually marry within their own ancestral group,
and tend to marry in their late teens. Since
marriage affects economic, political and social
standing, it is a public decision of two
families. After a marriage contract has been
signed, elaborate rituals and customs mark the
formal engagement celebration and marriage
ceremony. Afghan houses traditionally consist
of a series of rooms surrounding a private,
rectangular courtyard where women play with their
children, cook and socialize. Married sons share
the same compound with their parents, though
often have separate quarters for their families.
Houses may also contain a special room for men to
entertain male friends. In cities, some Afghans
live in apartment buildings. Nomadic Afghans live
in tents.
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Traditional Afghan society segregates men and
women and imposes special regulations for womens
conduct. Husbands traditionally had the power to
decide when women could leave the house, and many
women spent their adult lives in purdah
(seclusion), seeing only men from their family.
The introduction of universal suffrage in 1965
dramatically changed womens position while they
still maintained their traditional
responsibilities at home, many women,
particularly in cities, moved into the workforce
and established careers in the professions. Both
the Mujahidin and Taliban governments instituted
repressive measures against women, including
prohibitions against womens education and
employment. However, with the Talibans loss of
power, women have been regaining their old
freedoms.
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Northern Afghan men adore buzkashi ("grab the
goat"), an ancient game that is believed to have
been developed in central Asia and is considered
part of Afghans noble past. While various
peoples play the game, the Uzbeks are considered
its champions. Played on horseback, buzkashi may
involve hundreds of players. Teams are limited to
10 men. A headless carcass, nowadays usually from
a calf, is thrown on the ground in the centre of
the circle of horsemen. At a signal, the riders
rush in and each tries to lift the carcass onto
his horse, a task that alone takes great
strength. Yet to score a goal, the rider with the
carcass must also gallop to a goal point (often
over a mile away) through opposing riders armed
with whips, then return to the starting point and
drop the calf where it was picked up. The horses
used for buzkashi are specially trained and
costly.
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Childrens games in Afghanistan include tag,
blind-mans buff, kite flying and hopscotch.
Girls enjoy volleyball, basketball and playing
with homemade dolls, while boys play soccer or
make slingshots. A game called buzul-bazi,
similar to marbles, uses sheep knuckle bones. In
winter, Afghan children enjoy having snowball
fights. Some people also ski near Kabul.
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Kite flying is more than a pastime in Afghanistan
-- it is a national obsession. The streets of the
capital, Kabul, are filled with shops selling
kite-flying equipment, and the skies above the
city are decorated each day with hundreds of
colorful kites fluttering in the wind. Banned by
the Taliban as un-Islamic, kite flying has now
hit new heights of popularity in the country.
Afghans have elevated kite flying to an art form,
and one of its chief attractions is kite
fighting.
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During the fight, or "jang," two kites are flown
close to one another, often to great heights. The
object is then to use the wire or glass coated
string of your kite to cut the wire of your
opponent's kite to set it free and away.
When an opponent's kite is cut free, it flutters
away into the far reaches of the city. Such kites
are said to be "azadi rawest," or "free and
legal," and can be retrieved by neighborhood
children to fly another day. These children are
the kite runners. Each neighborhood also crowns
its own "sharti," or kite-fighting champion.
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Winter is one of the most popular times for kite
flying in Afghanistan. The winds are strong, and
schools are closed because of the cold weather. -
While it brings mostly smiles, kite flying is
also dangerous. Many people are injured when they
fall from roofs while chasing free floating kites
or when they lose concentration and footing
during a heated battle. A kite figther named
Sharif recalls the glory days of kite flying in
Kabul, before the Taliban. "Before the Taliban,
people used to fly kites in a place called
Chaman-i-Babrak (in northern Kabul), and kite
flying competitions were held there. Kids, young
people, and older people from all over
Afghanistan and Kabul City would gather there.
They used to lay wagers on fighting kites."
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 Khaled Hosseini
He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His
father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign
Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History
at a large high school in Kabul. In 1976, the
Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini
family to Paris. They were ready to return to
Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had
already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the
invasion of the Soviet army. The Hosseinis sought
and were granted political asylum in the United
States. In September of 1980, Hosseini's family
moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated
from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa
Clara University where he earned a bachelor's
degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he
entered the University of California-San Diego's
School of Medicine, where he earned a Medical
Degree in 1993. He completed his residency at
Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Hosseini
was a practicing internist between 1996 and
2004.
While in medical practice, Hosseini began writing
his first novel, The Kite Runner, in March of
2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner, was published and
has since become an international bestseller,
published in 38 countries. In 2006 he was named a
goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations
Refugee Agency.  His second novel, A Thousand
Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007. He
lives in northern California. 
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The Kite Runner is a powerful and moving novel
set in Afghanistan and America. The narrator,
Amir, is the privileged son of Baba, a rich
businessman, member of the influential Pashtun
tribe and Suni Muslim, who tells the story of his
friendship with Hassan, a low-caste ethnic Hazara
and Shi'a.
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Works Cited
http//lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/afghanistan/afghanist
an.html
http//ia331317.us.archive.org/3/items/Mr.BrunsUpd
atedAfghanistanPowerpoint/Afghanistan.ppt
www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/wo
rld/afghanistan_overview3.ppt
http//www.kabulguide.net/kbl-bookseller.htm
http//library.syr.edu/instruction/class/sharreadK
ite/
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Created by Becky Likin
Leigh Cockrill