I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.
In it, I read that my people, the Pashtuns, had persecuted and oppressed the Hazaras. It said the Hazaras had tried to raise against the Pashtuns in the nineteenth century, but the Pashtuns had ‘quelled them with unspeakable violence.’
‘And where is he headed?’ Baba said. ‘A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.’