Amir’s Kabul that we see in 1975 is a vibrant and cheerful one. The streets are bustling and street vendors and shops spill across the roads. There are cars and horses and people milling around everywhere. Amir’s home is in a wealthier part of Kabul where the houses are surrounded by gated and walled gardens. Each one seems to be its own mini palace. There is a sense of luxury and safety here.
The Kabul we see here seems to have a bright culture. There are traditional kite tournaments held annually where the young and adults pull together to put on a massive festival. At the Eid festival the streets are again packed with people celebrating and sharing. There is music and art. The education system allows females and males to go to university. Western culture infiltrates the country, with John Wayne country films playing in the cinemas. The politics, although not without corruption, appears to be stable and democratic. The social system still seems to follow an archaic model. There are clear demarcations between the status of various ethnic groups. The Pashtuns are clearly at the top of the rankings, with Amir and Assef coming from wealthy backgrounds. Ali and Hassan, who are Hazara are servants. They get picked on by other people and are seen as having a low status in the world because of their ethnicity.
The Afghan community in America still retains much of the social stratification we saw in 70’s Kabul. When in typical American society the Afghan community mostly mirrors the behaviours of their new country. When in Afghan society they revert back to old customs. For example, at the Afghan market Amir and Soraya cannot be alone together and is frowned upon when Amir approaches Soraya himself instead of sending his father. We see a traditional Afghan wedding when Amir and Soraya get married and the greetings between the General and Baba follow traditional Afghan protocol.
When Amir goes back to Afghanistan it is very much a country torn apart by several decades of war and civil unrest. The buildings are close to crumbling down, the markets have all closed down and the streets are deserted apart from the orphans, beggars and stray dogs.
The Afghanistan Amir returns to is under the dictatorship of the Taliban. They have imposed a strict regime over the nation, which uses their interpretation of Islam to impose strict rules on the people. The Taliban uses fear to ensure that the people do as they say. Many of the arts have been banned and traditions such as kite flying have been stopped. The social system has become worse, women have little freedom, men who refuse to join the Taliban are executed and ethnic groups living in the cities are wiped out (this is how Hassan is killed).
For this book to work in another setting or time, the writer would have to pick somewhere that had both racial and religious tensions going on and where another state or country was seen as a ‘Holy Grail’ land. For example, this story might have also worked in Northern Ireland in the 80’s where a long history of British rule and tensions between Protestants and Catholics caused a great deal of unrest.
