pauperize

Iran, after all, is not the only Muslim country with an urban westernized elite that’s been decimated by dictatorship and pauperized by decades of war.

“Haiti was immediately quarantined and pauperized into the forced dysfunction of a postcolonial state,” literary scholar Nick Nesbitt has written, “hamstrung by the terrified slave-holding powers that then controlled the globe.”

Banks stopped giving out money, instantly pauperizing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, who couldn’t access their accounts even as they watched the value of their savings wither away.

“What you have in the U.S. and what you have in the Arab world are exactly the same: a pauperized citizenry rising up against a militarized state and system,” Khouri said.

Analysts warn that the downturn could pauperize the middle class, making it that much harder for the country to recover.