ID#: 1946 Oct 23 : Houston : Pakistan on the Edge:

PAKISTAN ON THE EDGE: POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES & PERSONAL STORIES

SPEAKER Haroon K. Ullah U.S. State Department DATE & TIME Thursday, October 23rd Registration & Food: 6:30 - 7:15 p.m.  Program: 7:15 - 8:30 p.m. *Heavy appetizers included LOCATION BlackFinn Grille  1910 Bagby Street Houston, TX 77002   ONLINE REGISTRATION

Awais Reza is a shopkeeper in Lahore’s Anarkali Bazaar—the largest open market in South Asia—whose labyrinthine streets teem with shoppers, rickshaws and cacophonous music.

But Anarkali’s exuberant hubbub cannot conceal the fact that Pakistan is a country at the edge of a precipice. The easy sociability that had once made up this vibrant community has been replaced with doubt and fear. Old-timers like Awais, are being shouldered aside by easy money, discount stores, heroin peddlers and the tyranny of fundamentalists.

Every night before Awais goes to bed, he hopes that the city will not be plunged into a blackout, that the night will remain calm, and, most of all, that his three sons will safely return home. Each of the boys, though, has their own vision of their, and Pakistan’s, future with each son choosing a different path: shopkeeper, law student and jihadist.

The Bargain from the Bazaar​ - the product of eight years of field research - is an intimate window onto ordinary middle-class lives caught in the maelstrom of a nation falling to pieces. It’s an absolutely compelling portrait of a family at risk—from a violently changing world on the outside and a growing terror from within.  

Haroon K. Ullah is a international scholar, US diplomat, and field researcher specializing in South Asia and the Middle East.  Haroon currently serves on Secretary Kerry’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department, where he focuses on public diplomacy and countering violent extremism.  He grew up in a farming community in Washington State and was trained at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he served as a senior Belfer fellow and completed his MPA.  He has a PhD from the University of Michigan and was a William J. Fulbright Fellow, a Harvard University Presidential Scholar, a National Security Education Program Fellow and a Woodrow Wilson Public Service Fellow.  Haroon is author of Vying for Allah’s Vote and The Bargain from The Bazaar.  
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Discounted copies of his book, The Bargain from the Bazaar: A Family's Day of Reckoning in Lahore, will be available for purchase and signing by the author.

Heavy appetizers included. Please be sure to register with the link above.