The People's Academy returns tomorrow, Saturday 6 September at 15:00 UTC, with a class on Sanctions as Warfare taught by Dr. Farwa Sial.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, United Nations Security Council, and European Union have dramatically escalated the use of unilateral coercive measures, or sanctions, in peacetime — an escalation in economic warfare made possible by the fall of the Soviet Union.
In the past few decades, there has been a concerted effort to legitimate sanctions as a lawful instrument to punish nations that refuse to submit to imperialist diktat. Their effects have been brutal. Sanctions have not only claimed millions of lives — recent research shows that, between 1971 and 2021, US and EU sanctions have claimed 38 million lives globally. They have also maintained inequality among nations, preserving the racial hierarchy of the colonial order in the international system.
In Unit 5, we look at sanctions as a weapon of war — and consider the ways in which popular forces in Palestine, Yemen, and elsewhere have inverted the tool against the imperialists themselves.
You can find the reading materials here and tune in to the lecture here.