The Kite Runner



The Kite Runner

Life Under the Taliban

Excerpt 1:

The Taliban leadership were primarily educated in training camps, referred to as madrassas in the readings below. The term madrassa, however, simply means “school,” and very few madrassas teach the extreme views presented in these readings. The following excerpt describes the kind of education boys receive in the Taliban training camps.

…In many of the 7,500 madrassas in Pakistan, inside a student body of 750,000 to a million, students learn to recite and obey Islamic law, and to distrust and even hate the United States.

“Jihad,” shouted a little boy, from a high window in a madrassa just steps from the Khwani Bazaar. He grinned and waved as foreign journalists snapped his photograph, but, on the streets below, older students had massed for demonstrations that would end in clouds of tear gas and smoke from burning tires, as young men jumped through fire to prove their faith and ferocity.

President Bush and diplomats from the West have taken great pains to point out that the war on Mr. bin Laden and the Taliban of Afghanistan is not a war on Islam, but in many madrassas here in Pakistan—especially those near the border with Afghanistan—militant Muslims lecture students that the US is a nation of Christians and Jews who are not after a single terrorist or government but are bent on the worldwide annihilation of Islam.

The madrassas’ sword is in the narrow education they offer, and the devotion they engender from students from the poorest classes who, without them, would have nowhere to go, or go hungry. (1)

Excerpt 2:

When the Taliban came to power in many areas of Afghanistan, people were hopeful that it would bring peace and stability. The following excerpt describes the reasons for cheering the Taliban, as well as the cruel reality of life under the Taliban.

In Kabul, the Taliban have been trying to set about reconstruction. A start has been made on a digital telephone system to connect Afghanistan with the outside world…

But there is little else to cheer. The streets may be safe, but, in the words of one resident, it is “like having good security in a prison.” Anyone who breaks the law is dealt with severely by the religious police, the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Amputated hands were recently publicly displayed to show the Taliban’s brand of zero-tolerance policing.

Once a cosmopolitan city, Kabul now offers its residents little in the way of amusement beyond the Taliban-run radio, which transmits Koranic verses, or a bizarre motorcycle “wall of death.” Even some of the Taliban find things dull. Almost the most exciting thing they can do is to visit the only hotel in the city, sneak out a camera from under their long tunics (photography is also banned) and pose for a snap. (2)

Excerpt (1) How did the training camps—madrassas—contribute to the rise of the Taliban? Use evidence from excerpt 1 to support your point of view.

Excerpt (2) When the Taliban came to power in many areas of Afghanistan, people were hopeful that it would bring peace and stability. Find evidence from the excerpt that supports this point of view.

Excerpt 3:

In the fall of 2001, after military intervention by the United States, the Taliban fell from power in most areas of Afghanistan. The following excerpt describes the changes in Kabul in November 2001.

The streets are also teeming with unaccompanied women for the first time in years. Prisoners in their own homes for so long, they once more shop in crowded bazaars and excitedly rediscover a city off limits under Taliban rule. Girls, barely a month ago barred from receiving an education, are excitedly waiting for schools to reopen. And while most women still shelter nervously behind the head-to-toe burqa, many are starting to show their defiance by negotiating the muddy pavements in high heels and white socks—one of the quirky things banned by the Taliban’s radical religious police, apparently on the grounds that they would arouse young men. And with the return of television, after a five-year break, have come female announcers sporting headscarves.

Shops are doing a roaring trade selling TV satellite receiving dishes, made from flattened coca cola cans, for those not content with the three hours of daily local programming. Cinemas are also back up and running Indian movies. The press to get tickets is phenomenal, with many resorting to the black market to secure a prized seat.

The male population is celebrating too. Boys fly once-banned kites without fear of reprimand, while their elder male relatives pack into busy restaurants, once the preserve of the hated Arab supporters of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, or sit down at a kerbside barber’s to get rid of their hated beards—another senseless Taliban rule. The obligatory turbans have also been shed. (3)

(1) Rick Bragg, “Shaping Young Islamic hearts and Hatreds,” New York Times, 14 October 2001, Al.

(2) “Asia: Living with the Taliban,” The Economist 352, no. 8129 (24 July 1999): 39.

(3) Ahmed Rashid, “Life’s Little Pleasures Return to Kabul after the Taliban’s Flight: You May Now Enjoy Yourselves,” Far Eastern Economic Review 164, no. 48 (6 December 2001): 20.

Excerpt (3) The word “prisoner” is used to describe the people of Afghanistan. What effect does this word choice have on the reader?

Reread excerpt 3. Identify the author’s premise and find two direct quotes to support that premise

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