The Kite Runner

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

So begins the first novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner (2003) follows the story of two boys in Afghanistan before the country fell apart. One builds a new life in America, the other stays behind. Literary to the bone, the Kite Runner spans thirty years and takes place in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the USA. It is a harrowing tale of friendship, coming-of-age, betrayal, lost innocence, fatherhood, and redemption. Evil and cowardice play no small part.

Narrator Amir lives with his father Baba, a noble and well-connected businessman, their servant Ali and his son Hassan. Amir yearns for his father’s approval and will do anything to earn it. Like most Afghans, Amir is a Pashtun but harelipped Hassan, his best friend, is a Shia Hazara, an oppressed minority. This embarrasses Amir and he downplays their friendship in front of his Pashtun friends. Amir is better educated and more creative than Hassan, ‘the harelipped kite runner’ but lacks his resolve and strength of character. The distinction defines the story’s course.

The early chapters embellish the innocence of Amir and Hassan’s childhood, in the lost world of a peaceful Afghanistan. Internal events mirror the external forces that shatter their lives forever. A coup topples the monarchy, communists seize power, the Soviets invade and the country plunges into war. When the Taliban take over they ban kites from the skies of Afghanistan. By 2001, the Kabul Amir knew is a relic of history.

The Kite Runner is semi-autobiographical. Like Amir, Hosseini (right) grew up in Kabul and moved to California at 15. Amir is a writer too, which explains his well-crafted prose. Hassan is loosely inspired by a Hazara servant Hosseini once knew but his story and relationship with Amir are fictional. The Kite Runner embodies the survivor’s guilt Hosseini felt when he visited his home country in 2001, a few months before 9/11. He felt like a tourist in his own country.

A film adaptation was made in 2007, which I have not seen.

Khaled Hosseini came to the USA as an asylum seeker. He studied medicine at Santa Clara University and wrote the Kite Runner while working as a doctor. For 18 months, he rose every morning at 5 to write. The Kite Runner’s success allowed him to write full time. Hosseini has since published two other novels, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ (2006) and ‘And the Mountains Echoed’ (2013). Like the Kite Runner, both are set in Afghanistan.

Gripping, heartbreaking and full of evocative imagery, the Kite Runner is utterly deserving of its bestseller status.

See Also:

• Peoples of Afghanistan

Rewriting ‘The Historical Babylon’

As noted in September, it’s high time to rewrite an old post and assess my writing progress. I wrote ‘The Historical Babylon’ on October 25^th 2017, two years ago when this blog was young. Why this one? Well, it’s old, I like the subject, and it could be better. As the original ranks higher on Google, I will replace the old post with the new edit.

• The Original:
  

Babylon (2300 BC – 1000 AD) was an ancient Mesopotamian city and the first true metropolis. It was the capital of four different empires and, from 1770 – 1670 BC and 609 – 539 BC, the largest city in the world. Centuries before Classical Greece Babylon was the centre of ancient astronomy, philosophy and science. As a cosmopolitan city peopled by myriad cultures and nationalities, the first ever to reach 200,000 inhabitants, Babylon set the example for later cities such as Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople. New York fills this role today.

Most of our knowledge of Babylon and the Babylonians today comes from the Hebrew Bible, the Greeks and archaeology. The Babylonians themselves called the city ‘Babila’, thought to mean ‘gate of the gods’, while the Hebrews called it Babel.

King Hammurabi expanded Old Babylon from city state to empire in the 1700s when he conquered Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) and neighbouring Elam (southwestern Iran). He is famous for dictating the first known code of laws, inscribed on a 2.25 metre stone stele. Hammurabi’s Code covers everything from payment and contract to slavery and family inheritance. His laws followed an ‘eye-for-an-eye’ doctrine but applied differently to slaves, freed men, property owners, women and men.

One thousand years of foreign rule separate the kingdom of Hammurabi from Babylon’s second age of glory. The Hittites sacked the city in 1595, followed by the Kassites, who ruled for five centuries and left few records. After the Kassites came the Elamites, and then the Assyrians; Babylon’s traditional nemeses. Babylon prospered as Assyria’s second capital and the centre of Mesopotamian religion.

In the 700 and 600s BC a series of ambitious princes exploited local resentment to launch rebellions from Babylon. The first was Meradoch-Baladan, who proclaimed himself king of Babylon and contested the Assyrians on three separate occasions. In 689 BC Sennacherib, king of Assyria, defeated him and razed the city to the ground. So sacrilegious was this act that his murder at the hands of his own sons was attributed to divine justice. Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s youngest, restored the city and governed well, but was executed after rising against his brother.

The fifth uprising, led by the Chaldean Nabopolassor was successful. In alliance with the Cimmerians, Scythians and Medes he sacked Nineveh and overthrew the Assyrian yoke. His brief but vibrant ‘Neo-Babylonian Empire’ (626-539 BC) is the Babylon best known today.

Nabopolassor’s son Nebuchadnezzar led Babylon to its zenith. New conquests brought riches and slaves to the capital to fund his ambitious projects. First Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the old city walls and its eight entrances. This included the famous ‘Ishtar Gate’, an opulent structure adorned with lapis lazuli and the images of aurochs, lions and dragons. He also rebuilt the city’s ziggurats; notably Esagila and the 91-metre tall Etemenaki. Both were dedicated to Marduk, Babylon’s chief god.

Nebuchadnezzar’s most famous construction was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. According to legend he built it to quell the homesickness of Amytis, his Median queen, who longed for the verdant wooded hills of her homeland. Possibly apocryphal, the gardens were a multi-layered pyramid filled with artificial forests and waterfalls. Herodotus named it one of Seven Wonders of the World.

Babylon was always a centre of mathematics and science. Their numeric system was based on the number 60, which is how we tell the time today. Babylonians invented algebra in the 1600s BC, and their discoveries inspired the Greeks and Arabs. Babylonian astronomers were the first to recognise the planets and discover they revolved around the sun. They even calculated the frequency of lunar and solar eclipses. A less boastful achievement was the foundation of western astrology.

Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BC. As Persia’s administrative capital the city continued to prosper. It was briefly Alexander the Great’s capital too before he died there in 323 BC. The new millennium began a slow decline, fallen to ruin by the year 1000.

651 words

• The Rewrite:

Babylon (2300 BC – 1000 AD) was the world’s first metropolis. On the banks of the Euphrates river in modern-day Iraq, it was the capital of four empires and twice the largest city in the world. Babylon was the centre of ancient astronomy, philosophy and science centuries before Greece and the first city with 200,000 inhabitants. Like Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and New York, it was the cosmopolitan capital of its day.

Archaeologists unearthed Babylon and translated its stone tablets in the 1800s. Before then our only records came from the Hebrews and Greeks. The Babylonians called their city ‘Babila’, meaning ‘Gate of the Gods’ in Akkadian, while the Hebrews called it Babel. ‘Babylon’ comes from the Greeks.

Hammurabi’s Code of laws was the first of its kind. Inscribed on a 2.25 metre stone stele, it covers everything from inheritance to payment and contract. The king of Babylon’s laws followed an ‘eye-for-an-eye’ philosophy that applied differently to slaves, freedmen, property owners, women and men. Hammurabi founded the Old Babylonian Empire when he conquered Mesopotamia and Elam (southwestern Iran) in the 1700s BC.

Foreigners ruled for the next thousand years. The Hittites sacked Babylon in 1595, then the Kassites ruled for five centuries, leaving few records. The Elamites, Aramaeans and Assyrians followed. Though Babylon and Assyria were traditional enemies, under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC), Babylon prospered as a secondary capital and centre of Mesopotamian religion.

In the 700s and 600s BC, ambitious princes rebelled from Babylon. Merodach-Baladan II seized the throne three times. Sennacherib of Assyria finally defeated him in 689 BC and razed Babylon to the ground. When Sennacherib was murdered by his own sons, Babylonians called it divine justice. Esarhaddon, his youngest, restored the city and named his younger son Shamash-Shum-Kin governor. When Shamash-Shum Kin rose against his brother Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king burned down the palace with him inside it.

The fifth uprising, led by Nabopolassar, was successful. In alliance with the Cimmerians, Scythians and Medes he sacked Nineveh and ended the Assyrian yoke. His brief but vibrant ‘Neo-Babylonian Empire’ (626-539 BC) is the Babylon best known today.

Nebuchadnezzar II led Babylon to its peak. On succeeding his father Nabopolassar, he conquered the old Assyrian lands and brought slaves and treasure to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar built new walls with eight entrances that included the ‘Ishtar Gate’ made of lapis lazuli and adorned with aurochs, lions and dragons. He rebuilt the ziggurats Esagila and 91-meter tall Etemenaki, dedicating them to Marduk, Babylon’s chief god.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were a Wonder of the World. According to legend, Nebuchadnezzar built them for Amytis, his homesick Median queen who longed for the verdant hills of her homeland. A terraced pyramid filled with forests and waterfalls, the Hanging Gardens were Nebuchadnezzar’s greatest achievement. Though famous in the ancient world, no trace of them remains today.

Babylon led the world in mathematics and science. Based on the number 60, their numeric system is how we tell the time today. Babylonians invented algebra in the 1600s BC and their discoveries inspired the Greeks and Arabs. Babylonian astronomers were the first to name the planets and figure they orbit the sun. They also calculated the frequency of lunar and solar eclipses and founded western astronomy.

Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BC. As Persia’s administrative capital the city continued to prosper. It was briefly Alexander the Great’s capital too before he died there in 323 BC. By the new millennium, Babylon was in decline and by AD 1000 in ruins.

586 words

What I changed:

1. Bolding the focus of each section, instead of keywords. This makes nicer to look at and easier to read.
2. Tautologies: cosmopolitan city peopled by myriad cultures and nationalities
3. Shortening sentences: to direct, punchy ones, over waffly long ones.
4. Active voice over passive voice where applicable.
5. Removing fluffy, descriptive words like opulent. Let the descriptions speak for themselves.
6. Trying to say more with fewer words
7. Fact-checking: Esharhaddon was king of Assyria. His son rebelled from Babylon. Shame on me.

See Also:

• The original post
• From the Parapet Turns Two
• The Allegorical Babylon

Rojava

Rojava (2016-) is the unrecognised Kurdish state in Syria. Officially ‘the autonomous confederation of North and East Syria’, it governs 3 million Kurds and 2 million Arabs, Assyrians, Syriac Christians, Circassians, Turkmen and Armenians. Rojava spans a third of Syria and is a key player in the Syrian Civil War. Abandoned by its US allies last weekend, it currently faces a Turkish invasion.

The Kurds are a Western Iranian people living in the highlands of the Middle East. The breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918-23 divided their homeland between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. They have struggled for independence ever since. Kurds are 20% of Turkey and 10% of Syria. Most are Sunni Muslims.

Rojava’s ideology follows the teachings of Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), a Kurdish rebel group based in Turkey. Their Social Contract advocates a secular, decentralised system, governed by democratic assemblies, that enshrines women’s and minority rights. Their libertarian socialist experiment puts them at odds with both Syria’s Baathist dictatorship and the Islamists fighting it.

In 2012 overextended Syrian troops withdrew from the country’s northeast, letting Kurdish militias fill the vacuum. In 2014 ISIS seized the Kurdish city of Kobani. The Kurds retaliated with help from the PKK. With American air support, they spearheaded the fight against ISIS and in 2016 established Rojava across Kurdish and Arab lands that include Syria’s oilfields.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is Rojava’s army. It encompasses a Kurdish core and allied Arab militias. As US allies, the SDF proved better organised and more reliable than the ‘moderate’ rebels previously supported. Volunteers from around the world flocked to their banners like the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Their female fighters terrified ISIS, who believe they will not go to heaven if killed by a woman. In March 2019 the SDF destroyed the last ISIS stronghold in Syria. Thousands of prisoners fell into their hands.

Turkey, though allied with the US, considers Rojava a terrorist entity. This is due to their ties with the PKK, whom Turkey and the USA deem terrorists. A Kurdish state at Turkey’s borders will embolden the PKK and possibly support their 40-year struggle. Turkey dared not strike Rojava while US troops were stationed there, however allied Syrian rebels fight on its behalf.

In October 2019 Donald Trump announced full American withdrawal from Syria. Their objective – to destroy ISIS – was complete. As soon as they left, Turkish troops invaded. Turkey seeks to establish a ‘safe zone’ along the border in which to resettle two million Syrian refugees and separate Rojava from the PKK. That safe zone contains much of the Kurdish population and key cities the SDF pledges to defend.

Rojava stands no chance on its own. Despite their experience and drive, SDF foot soldiers are no match for NATO’s second-largest military, fully equipped with aircraft and tanks. Since Sunday, 104 fighters and 60 civilians have died, with casualties mounting. With the US gone, their only hope is to ally with the Syrian regime, the same one that has denied Kurds civil rights for decades. Should their 12,000 prisoners of war escape, ISIS will rise again.

Mazlam Abdi, SDF commander-in-chief:

“We know that we would have to make painful compromises with Moscow and Bashar al-Assad if we go down the road of working with them. But if we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.”

Sources: Associated Press, Al Jazeera, BBC, Democracy Now, The Economist, Foreign Policy

See Also:

• The World’s Strongest Militant Groups
• White Helmets
• 2018: Western Powers Bomb Syria
• Stormclouds over Idlib
• The 2010s

Hungary

Hungary is a landlocked nation in the heart of Europe and home to the Magyar people. It spans the plains between the Carpathian Mountains and the Alps and is known for its bloody history and unique culture. Hungary is an EU member and historically Catholic. Its official name has no kingdom or republic of before it; it is simply Hungary.

That name comes from the Huns, who lived there in the 400s. Being the westernmost stretch of the Eurasian steppe, Hungary was often settled by nomads from the east. The last of these were the Magyars, who give Hungary its language and native name, Magyarország.

The Magyars (pronounced Madh-yar) were a coalition of tribes from the Ural Mountains who settled the Pannonian Basin in 895 under their leader Arpad. Over the following century, Magyar raiders terrorised Central Europe while the Vikings pillaged the west.

St Stephen was crowned and baptised by Pope Sylvester II in the year 1000. The Magyars converted and settled down as a feudal kingdom far larger than the modern state.  Hungarians still celebrate their patron saint’s feast day as a public holiday. The crown of Saint Stephen’s characteristic bent comes from when it was dropped on the frozen Danube in the 1600s.

The Curse of Turan explains the tragedies of Hungarian history. According to legend, the Magyar shamans cursed St Stephen and his people for abandoning the old gods. The curse explains:

• Hungary’s fall to the Mongols in 1241
• Hungary’s fall to the Ottomans in 1526
• The failure of the 1848 revolution against the Habsburgs
• The 1917 Treaty of Trianon, which stripped 72% of Hungary’s territory
• Hungary’s disastrous alliance with Germany in WW2
• The failure of the 1956 revolution against Stalin

Budapest lies on the banks of the Danube. Hungary’s capital, it was once three towns – Buda, Pest and Obuda, which converged in 1873. The city houses notable landmarks and monuments, including:

• St Stephen’s Basilica, built 1905.
• Buda Castle (below), built 1265, expanded 1765. A UNESCO world heritage site.
• Dohány Street Synagogue, built 1859. Europe’s largest.
• Fisherman’s Bastion, built 1902

Hungarian is Europe’s most unique language. Belonging to the Finno-Ugric family, its nearest European relatives are Finnish and Estonian though even they are distant: German is closer to Hindi than Hungarian is to Finnish. Its bewildering phonology makes Hungarian one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn.

Roma form Hungary’s largest ethnic minority and have lived there since the Middle Ages. Official censuses count them as 3% of Hungary’s 10 million, though the actual number is likely far higher.

After King Louis II fell at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Hungarian crown passed to the Habsburgs of Austria. From 1867-1918 they ruled Austria-Hungary as a ‘Dual Monarchy’ on equal footing. Hungary became a parliamentary democracy in 1989. Since 2010, strongman Viktor Orban has ruled on an authoritarian and anti-immigrant platform.

See Also: 

• Steppe People
• Turanism
• Attila the Hun

Turanism

Turanism asserts a common Inner Asian identity with racial overtones. Born in the 1800s, it was Hungary and Turkey’s answer to pan-Slavic and German nationalism. Turanism assigns racial identity to the (now debunked) Ural-Altaic language family, as Aryanism did Indo-European. At best it promotes exploring cultural and linguistic ties between varied peoples, at worst genocide and hate. Though long fallen from grace, Turanist thought still lives in the far-right corners of Turkish and Hungarian politics.

Turanism was born in Europe’s nationalist zeitgeist. In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, old empires and principalities were redrawn along ethnic and linguistic lines. Prussia and Russia emphasised pan-Germanic and Slavic heritage respectively and the discovery of the Indo-European language family led to a supposed ‘Aryan race’. Hungarian, however, is not an Indo-European tongue; its speakers descend from the Eurasian Magyars. Slavic nationalism threatened Hungary’s hold on Eastern Europe and promoted worrying ties with rival Russia. As ethnic kinship came to supersede religious ties, Hungary needed new friends.

Herman Vambarry, Hungarian orientalist and the Ottoman Sultan’s former advisor, drew on the work of Finnish linguists to propose Hungarians and Turks shared a ‘Turanian’ origin – a master race heritage of their own – and therefore Hungary should look east, not west, in its alliances. The notion gained steam after 1918 when the western powers stripped Hungary of 72% of its territory and far-right thought took hold. Turanians comprise of not only Magyars and Turks, but all others supposedly descended from Central Asian conquerors. These include:

• Turks (both Turkish and Central Asian)
• Hungarians
• Bulgarians (considered ‘Slavicised Turanians’)
• Finns
• Estonians
• Japanese
• Koreans
• Mongols
• Tatars
• Manchus
• Sami
• Indigenous Siberians

Turkey had its national awakening in the end days of the Ottoman Empire. Reformers stressed ethnic identity over religious: Turks were distinct from, even superior to, the Arabs, Kurds, Greeks and Armenians which they ruled.

Though pan-Turkism promoted solidarity with the Tartars and Central Asian Turks under Russian rule, Turanism went further. For Hungarian and Turkish nationalists, it provided a uniting ideology to counter the European powers, particularly Russia.

Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire fought on the same side in WW1, as did Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and Japan in WW2. Both the Young Turks, who took over in 1908 and perpetrated the Armenian genocide, and Hungary’s Arrow Cross, who murdered 10,000 Jews and Roma in WW2, were committed Turanists.

Japanese Turanists advocated cooperation with Hungary and the takeover of Manchuria and eastern Russia.  The High Command disbanded Turanist societies after 1941 however, to pursue a pan-Asian stance instead.

Turanists believe their race is superior. Like the Nazis, they twist science and history to suit their needs. 20th century Turanists claimed:

• Ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece and Sumeria were Turanian
• Prophet Muhammad was a Turk, not an Arab
• Native Americans are Turkic descended
• A Turanian Empire once stretched across Inner Asia and should be recreated

‘Turan’ is the old Persian term for Central Asia. In Iranian literature, the Turanians were fearsome warriors and the nemeses of Persian heroes. They were likely Iranic Scythians, however, not the Turks who migrated later.

After WW2, Turanism died out in Finland and Communist Hungary. Modern Turanism, however, is an ideological staple of the Grey Wolves, a Turkish ultranationalist group, and far-right Jobbik, Hungary’s second-largest party.

Sources: American Political Science Review, Armenian Genocide.org, The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, Hurriyet Daily News, Jobbik.com

See Also:

• Hungary
• Falangism
• Turkic Migrations
  • Crimean Tatars
• Steppe People
  • The Xiongnu
  • Attila the Hun
• The Armenian Genocide