Destruction or Sacrifice?

          Throughout the book there are several times where sacrifices are made, whether it be physically or mentally. Growing up Hassan was always placing himself in a position of sacrifice for Amir, right up until he left him. He always stood up for Amir in fights as Amir just stood back as a bystander. This constitutes him as evil. A quote by Stephen L. Carter states, "Evil is not simply the result of a decision to do bad things: it is refusing to do a good thing." This is exactly what Amir did as he hid behind the building while he watched his half brother get raped. Also, Amir's evil action when he framed Hassan so that he would leave his house shows selfishness and greed. There is a difference between justification and excuse and Amir definitely made an excuse to him to help him reason why he didn't stand up for Hassan like he did for him.

         Once the war started it was understood by the community that if you were a true Afghani, you would stay and fight for your country. Fight for what exactly? If you stayed and tried to fight you were pretty much doomed from the start. I interpret this as moral evil because the Taliban are aware of their violent and evil actions towards their community. Some people many not view this specific topic as evil because evil when labelled is opinion based. It depends whose perspective it is coming from. For example, the Taliban wouldn't consider their actions as evil but rather as heroic. What they may not measure out of their actions is the scale of violence that they portray. I personally think that they have their right to their own beliefs and own opinions but the way they torture and 'sacrifice' people of their own community is incomparable to anything that I have heard or witnessed myself. The kind of evil that the Taliban's are conveying creates an absence of rights to the victims, they don't have a choice.


          There are different types of evil actions that humans perform, in which the Taliban’s cover them all. They are ‘moral monsters’ because it is their personal choice whether or not to inflict physical or mental harm to any human being. They are acting out of character, for example, Assef has always been a bullying so it’s just in his nature to continue to be evil. Lastly, some members of the Taliban might act out an ‘unchosen’ evil, which accounts for factors out of control of that individual. The picture to the right here shows Afghans who have been killed by the Taliban's, their country's own army, infront of children. This type of, what they would call 'sacrifice', suffering scars everyone for the rest of their lives. These children are going to have this exact image in their minds forever and this is how they will remember their country. This broken sense of community reminds me of what is happening with the Kony 2012 foundation. Afghanistan isn't the only country that is scaring peopel of their own community. This kind of suffering is found worldwide and you can see the destruction and pain of communities all over. The link below is the Kony 2012 promotion video. We can create hope for some countries who are suffering. The big question regarding this story is, is the pain inflicted cause for destruction, or sacrifice?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc