Oppression regimes
Oppression is defined as unjust or cruel exercise of authority and power. In a social justice context, oppression is what happens when people are pushed down by societies. Oppression usually refers to a great power such as government applying control over a large group, such as the population of a country. The Youth Action Center of Canada identifies six main forms of oppression based on race, gender, class, sex, ability and age. Oppression can be categorised into four different groups, social oppression, institutionalised oppression, systematic oppression and internalized oppression.
Kite runner:
In the novel, Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini, many occasions are reflective of situations that occur in reality. Oppression is a prevalent theme throughout the novel, just as oppression is prevalent in society. Many oppression regimes have become adopted by society causing some forms of oppression to go unnoticed because it is accepted as a part of social structure. If people try to break out of the social code, they are usually silenced unless more people follow the lead of the rebels and change the inequality that is occurring. Many different people can be oppressed for different reasons and in Kite Runner, racism and ableism are two forms of oppression that are addressed. The novel shows how both of these ostracized people are being oppressed because of their race, or disability. People need to open their eyes and see the oppression that is going on in the world and recognize that they themselves may be victims of oppression, or that they are the oppressors. Society needs to become informed about this issue that seems to be accepted. People need to start questioning why things are the way they are and start to think for themselves instead of just accepting what has been occurring in society because the cycle of oppression will just continue if no one takes a stand. Hosseini's novel is just introducing the issue at hand, and his readers need to take a stand.
Quotes:
“They called him "flat-nosed" because of Ali and Hassan's characteristic Hazara Mongoloid features. For years, that was all I knew about the Hazaras, that they were Mogul descendants, and that they looked a little like Chinese people. School text books barely mentioned them and referred to their ancestry only in passing.”
Ethnicity is complicated in The Kite Runner. Amir and Hassan have different ethnic groups: Amir is Pashtun and Hassan is Hazara. To make matters more confusing, Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims and Hazaras are Shi'a Muslims. (So ethnicity and religion intertwine.) Here, Amir talks about how the Hazara people have been pretty much erased from official Afghani schoolbooks. Since the Pashtuns are in control, the Hazaras don't get much space in the official history of the country. There's also an attempt, it seems, to cover up the genocide committed by the Pashtuns against the Hazaras in the nineteenth century.

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~laurice/project/index.html

Half the sky: