???It's a place where landmines pepper dirt roads, children are brought up to become soldiers armed with AK-47s and terrorists like Osama Bin Laden's troupe breed. This is the stigma that plagues Afghanistan, which bestselling author Khaled Hosseini wants to dissuade.
???Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, discussed the story behind his bestselling novel on Thursday night in Alumni Arena as part of the Distinguished Speakers Series, culminating the UB Reads program that honored the book.
???Throughout the conversation-style lecture, moderated by Joyce Kryszak, a news and cultural affairs producer for WBFO, Hosseini addressed common malevolent views that blight his homeland.
???Hosseini is a native of Kabul, Afghanistan, and lived there until he was 11 years old when his family was forced to relocate to Paris as a result of the foundations of the Soviet War in Afghanistan during the late 1970s. His family moved to San Jose, Calif. after being granted political asylum in the U.S. in 1980.
???The lecture began with Hosseini reading the first chapter of his novel, which led the author to depict Afghanistan from what he remembers.
???Hosseini remembers an Afghanistan where it was acceptable to leave doors unlocked for days and as a place where murder and war were unheard of. He told the audience that he remembers vividly flying kites on top of his father's house.
???"For me, the central image of my childhood, which was very pleasant, is the kite. I will always associate Afghanistan with the kite," Hosseini said.
???Hosseini explained Afghanistan became a place ravaged by civil war after a 1979 Soviet invasion that introduced the brutal realities of civil war to the once peaceful plains of Central Asia.
???Afghanistan, thousands of years ago, became home to a variety of people and created a cultural mecca. Diversity only became perilous in recent history, Hosseini said.
???"Afghanistan is hardly a nation in the classic sense. It is a kaleidoscope of different ethnicities and tribes - each with their distinct cultural slants, each with their own dialectic, and in some instances, their own religion. Meaning sectarian - Shiite versus Sunni," he said.
???The story of Amir and Hassan, two childhood friends from Kabul and the protagonists in The Kite Runner, is set against the dramatic backdrop of realistic conditions that resulted from the Soviet invasion and the rise of the Taliban regime.
???Hosseini said many elements of the novel resonate with his own memories of Afghanistan as a child, but explained the novel is not an autobiographical piece.
???After reading another passage about the character of Amir's travels back to Afghanistan after living in the U.S. for a number of years as an adult, Hosseini said this situation was especially relatable.
???Hosseini had been living in the U.S. for over 20 years before his homecoming and felt "survivor's guilt" laced with the fear the criticism, much like the condemnation that the protagonist experienced in the shared passage.
???"I lived most of my life in the United States ... I fully acknowledged I was viewing Afghanistan through a cracked mirror," Hosseini said. "This is something I felt very profoundly when I went back to Afghanistan and I saw the destroyed streets, the people who were physically and emotionally scarred."
???Movie clips from the 2007 film version of The Kite Runner were added to the lecture and revolved around questions provided by a panel made up of university staff, faculty, students and alumni.
???"You sure know how to pick the scenes," Hosseini said at one point after airing a few controversial clips.
???One of the clips aired during the lecture featured a young Hassan walking out of a narrow alley broken and bleeding after getting raped by a group of Pashtun boys. The beating was a result of the fight Hassan put up for Amir's winning kite.
???With this scene, Hosseini said he wanted to create a metaphor for what has happened to Afghanistan, a land that has been forgotten about.
???"It's one of the few instances in the book where I made a conscious effort at a metaphor. In a way if you substitute Afghanistan for Hassan and these boys for the series of cruel regimes that terrorized Afghanistan... you kind of have a re-enactment of the Soviet withdrawal," Hosseini said.
???He said after Afghanistan played a key role in the demise of the Soviet Union, its infrastructure crumbled after all it put into the successful fight.
???"And after the Afghans served their purpose the international community packed their bags, stood back and watched as Afghanistan was, according to many Afghans, violated by warlords and by corrupt officials... and Taliban," Hosseini said.
???In the lecture, he also touched upon the history of the Taliban, which took root after refugees of the war had nothing else to grab hold of. Without an understanding of their history, members of the Taliban grew up only knowing war and an unbranded rendering of Islam.
???"The whole name of the Taliban now means something else. When it first came, most of the Taliban were young men who were refugees of the war against the Soviet Union," Hosseini said.
???Towards the end of the lecture, Hosseini was asked about an op-ed piece that he wrote for the Washington Post regarding speakers at the McCain-Palin rallies referring to Sen. Barack Obama as Barack Hussein Obama, emphasizing his foreign-sounding middle name with what he called "unveiled scorn."
???Hosseini explained that the way speakers were referring to Obama's middle name, which may have Islamic roots, was meant to signify something negative.
???"Because he may be coming from an Islamic background, that he meant somehow see this country differently than you and I do. This is something Sarah Palin said quite explicitly," Hosseini said. "Judge a man on the basis of his record ... not of the basis on his middle name."
???In response to an audience member's question about the future he sees for Afghanistan, Hosseini said that he believes it will take a lot for Afghanistan to rebuild from 30 years of destruction.
???Hosseini said the U.S. may have missed their "window of opportunity" to save Afghanistan. The scale of the conflict has magnified as the U.S. forgot about Afghanistan as war drums began beating for Iraq as early as six months after 9/11, he said. However, military presence in the area cannot dwindle for the wellbeing of the country, according to Hosseini.
???Audience member Nicole Mutignani, a junior political science major, believed Hosseini addressed many relevant issues regarding the U.S. foreign policy.
???"I liked how he talked about foreign policy in Afghanistan... We spend all that money, instead of giving it to people or building up the economy - [Hosseini] said we're paying $700,000 to kill one member of the Taliban," Mutignani said. "Hopefully with new presidents we have to get rid of military campaigns. If more resources were available there would be less people joining the Taliban."
???Thawab Shibly, a freshman undecided major, thought the event was well-organized as a discussion format.
???"I like that he clarified the relationship between Amir and Hassan and their father," Shibly said. "I also liked how he addressed the current issues regarding Sarah Palin and clarified to the audience how dangerous it is for people to call each other terrorists."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
