Afghan national cohesion was historically grounded in Pashtun ethnic domination over Hazaras

Evidence

Nonetheless, history does have consequences for the main characters. At the heart of Hosseini’s book is the legacy of Afghan ethnic inequality and violence that always haunts the relationship of the Pashtun Amir and the Hazara Hassan. Amin Saikal has described how earlier attempts to build an Afghan nation from various ethnicities and a complex system of clan and patronage tended to take on an ethnic coloring. For successive rulers trying to bring together these fissiparous elements, “a modicum of national cohesion was maintained by instituting a single group (Pashtuns) as an overlord vis-à-vis all others.” Amir and Hassan are the direct inheritors of such divisive policies. The Hazaras are a Persian-speaking minority from central Afghanistan, who may have central Asian or Mongolian heritage. Constituting around 20 percent of the population, they have been subject to systematic discrimination by the Pashtun majority, with massacres and ethnic cleansing used to displace and demoralize them. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 249

Categorization

• DEFINE: Grounds the Hazara-Pashtun axis in concrete demographic and policy history rather than stereotype.
• XREF: connects to: Afghan rulers maintained cohesion by making Pashtuns overlords over other ethnicities — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 249
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Afghan rulers maintained cohesion by making Pashtuns overlords over other ethnicities — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 249

Broader Connections

• Afghan rulers maintained cohesion by making Pashtuns overlords over other ethnicities #expands (0.95) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 249