The Forever War Sparknotes

All throughout this book, Afghanistan had many switches of power and constant war involving many countries, including the US and Russia. At the end of the book, as things are calming down, Laila says to Tariq, “Maybe there will be hope at the other end of this war, maybe for the first time in a long time.” (Hosseni 386). This quote shows the hope that the people of Afghanistan still had to possess to persevere through the years of war. The war affected thousands of lives in the country, as the war swept through the different cities. This war of especially affected Laila because it resulted in the death of her parents. Afghanistan as a whole had to show tremendous strength throughout the book as they endured through the war. Perseverance is most prominently shown through all citizens during the country’s war.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, is a book about what people in Afghanistan experienced throughout the Taliban and the war in Afghanistan. The book opened my eyes to see what people experienced during these events. The events that were happening were completely changing all aspects of their lives. The Taliban changed the lives of all people in Afghanistan. All of this information was all foreign and unfamiliar to me and I imagine it would be to most Americans. It is important to attempt to understand the changes and experiences people went through, even if they do not directly relate to us. Although all residents were impacted during this time, it is important to understand how the Taliban altered the lives of women residing in Afghanistan.

War is a terrible, but dark truth of the world we live in today and throughout most of history. After the 9/11 attacks, America declared war and soon after started to deploy soldiers to attack. To cover the war in a new aspect, many reports were sent to war zones to get a story for the people of America. One of these reporters was Dexter Filkins. After his horrendous time in the war zone, Filkins made a book titled “The Forever War”. In one of the chapters, it discusses suicide bombings during the war. Filkins, was an inside eye to the war, was not a soldier, but just a citizen trying to get a story for the rest of America. I believe Filkins wrote this chapter to show America about the continuous fear the soldiers and the civilians in the war zone.

If not simply hatred, violence, or execution, the imbalances of power between groups in Afghan society imposed strict and indignified social norms that ruled the lives of many.

The 1970s introduced the beautiful, stunning and peaceful Afghanistan to the chaotic, destructive, and immoral Afghanistan. The overthrowing of two kings, the take over by the communist, and finally the rise of the Taliban that lead the people of Afghanistan into a life of misery and uncertainty. In this calamity, the poor faced death while many rich families escaped the misery leaving behind their lives, past, and partly their responsibility. In the midst of a violent turmoil that shook Afghanistan, a moral dilemma was the cause of true pain in the heart of a little-privileged boy. The little boy is

Her grandmother, brother, three sisters and herself all had to run away.“There is not one family that has not eaten the bitterness of war,” a young Afghan merchant said in the 1985 National Geographic story that appeared with Sharbat’s photograph on the cover. She was a child when her country was caught in the jaws of the Soviet invasion. A carpet of destruction smothered countless villages like hers. She was perhaps six when Soviet bombing killed her parents. By day the sky bled terror. At night the dead were buried. And always, the sound of planes, stabbing her with dread.

Young men who join the Taliban are not as ideological. They are motivated by money and the Taliban’s willingness to pay them, adventure seekers and those who long for the status that only power can provide. Furthermore, they long for a change to their country that has not come since 2001. During this time, they have found rage in instances such as a local villager being killed or wounded in an attack by Afghan, U.S., or NATO forces.

The Taliban creates separate facilities for the men and women and does not attempt to hide the fact that working conditions are far worse for the women. During the initial arrival of the Taliban in Kabul, Mariam, Laila, and Rasheed experience a level of hopefulness. They have all heard that the Taliban brings peace to the territories they conquer, and Kabul is ready for relief after years of war. Mariam and Laila’s hope quickly disappears when they learn their lives will have more restrictions now than ever before. According to the Taliban rule, women are no longer allowed in public without a male relative, and they must always wear burqas when traveling.

In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, discrimination and prejudice is everywhere and nowhere. The Talibans do not seem to care who they are beating, torturing, or even executing. The novel The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini tackles the issue of ethnic discrimination in Afghanistan with an example of the relationship between Pashtuns and Hazaras. For several centuries, the Pashtun majority is treating the Hazara population as second class citizens, who are unworthy of education or decent employment because Hazaras are a minority ethnic group; this leads to many Hazaras suffering. The social and economic conditions in Afghanistan demonstrate the imbalance between the superior Sunni Muslims and the inferior Shi 'a Muslims and how people discriminate against each other because of their physical features and religious beliefs. The estrangement between the two causes many deaths. Furthermore the significant distinction between Hazaras and Pashtuns in Afghanistan is the major factor because it determines not only Amir and Hassan’s role in Afghan society but also determines how Hassan himself suffers and dies because of his religion. The physical and emotional division of prejudice between the Pashtuns and the Harzaras in the novel The Kite Runner is destructive and results in death because of the suffering the people endure.

When I read pages thirty-six to thirty-seven Amir’s first person prespective I realized what horrors and everyday trauma caused by war the citizens of Afghanistan faced. Most first world country’s have been fortunate enough to avoid or at least not have war on their country’s soil. This excerpt is a window into Afghanistans people lives after the war began. For instance in the passage it states, “The generation of afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs amd gunfire was not yet born.” Thousands of children in America they never had to listen to sounds of war and neither will their grandchildren. However for several years Afghanistan parents and children would. Soon those citizens would face problem after problem

The novel is centered around the city of Kabul during the late 1900’s to the early 2000’s. During this period, the city was in a time of conflict. There were forces trying to seize control over Afghanistan. There were various social and economical classes throughout the cities. For example, Jalil Khan lives in a high class area where as, Rasheed lives in a low-to-middle class area. Prior to the Soviets control, there were multiple benefits for women in education and obtaining jobs. When the Taliban later got control, there were many laws made governing daily life. Many, if not most people risked punishment and would for example, use televisions to watch the new movie, Titanic. Living in Kabul was extremely dangerous with rockets flying wild and armed men patrolling the neighborhoods. In 2001 on September 11th, people in Kabul and all of Afghanistan, were informed on the news of the Taliban’s attack on the United States. Also they learn that the U.S. has declared war on Afghanistan. During this time period, the people of Afghanistan learned to endure and never lose hope.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban dominated the country and terrorized the people. Streets of Kabul, the capital, filled with horror of the truculent Taliban. The Taliban enforces severe laws the strictly abide the Korhan. Consequently, if one doesn’t obey these laws, the range of punishments can be from public stoning to an execution. In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini conveys the effects on Afghanistan by the Taliban.

“Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were burned and schools destroyed, long before mines were planted like seeds of death and children buried in rock-piled graves,” Afghanistan was in its Golden Age (Hosseini 136). A time before it was an “ungovernable collection of tribes” and mini-states, a time where warlords and fundamentalists were not overpowering the government, Afghanistan stood as a country of ethnic harmony and the city of Kabul was known as “the Paris of Central Asia” (Bumiller). Women were going to school and tourists were able to adventure Afghanistan’s snow-capped mountains without worry. Sadly, in December 1979, Afghanistan awoke with sounds of gunfire and an invasion had begun by the Soviet Union. The families who had the money to flee the danger zone, quickly packed their belongings and left their homes behind, hoping to return someday. After the Soviet-Afghan war was at an end, the year 1996 brought about an Islamic student militia called the Taliban. During this time period of war and destruction, children were lost in a whole new world and stolen of their purity. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, he tells a powerful and cruel story through the eyes of Amir’s life (the main character) starting from when children’s lives consisted of flying kites and exploring the city’s streets freely, to an era where children were in run down orphanages or begging for money on the streets to help support their

Violence, war, discrimination, and poverty: these issues have long been a part of Afghanistan’s history. Even though things in Afghanistan are getting better, war fills the country, and women and children have to learn to endure abuse, caused by men and the Taliban; they also learn to endure poverty. Considering this, it is no wonder why Afghanistan is in the terrible position it is in now. Many Afghan cities like Kabul are filled with things like violence and discrimination, and the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini takes place in Kabul. This book follows the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, as they suffer pain and discrimination received from the Taliban and their

Khaled Hosseini displays these ridiculous rules in his novel, The Kite Runner, through the eyes of a man who spent his childhood living in Afghanistan. Because most of the storyteller’s ties were to Afghanistan, the reader finds out about how devastating the rise of the Taliban was to Afghan citizens. They saw a once thriving country free fall into one that has a corrupt government, and an overall depressed state of mind. (Afghanistan Online)