The Disaster

Southeastern Turkey got hit by a devastating set of earthquakes on the last February 6, magnitudes varying from 7.2 to 7.8. While the earthquake caused destruction in northwestern Syria, no doubt it is Turkey that got the nastier end of the stick. As the event is relatively fresh and with literal tons of more debris to search for any survivors from, the recent death toll of 30 thousand losses might land somewhere between 100 and 150 thousand, judging from the population of the areas with the most reported collapses.

With an estimated +3 million people who are affected by the earthquake, and tens of thousands relocated to mass tent-sites with limited access to the most basic human needs; no doubt some of the survivors will not make it for too long, be it from hypothermia or infectious disease that are known to take advantage of such situations. This is no doubt a humanitarian crisis, arguably one of the largest-scale ones in our century. Albeit both international and national communities alike race to lend aid in every form imaginable, the crisis will no doubt have lingering effects for a considerable time.

Some might debate the timing of some of the following points. Owing to the slim chance of someone still being alive under debris after five days, I agree. However, there are also crucial issues to raise; as a mark in history, if for no other reason. I believe these might shed some light, or even pose as life lessons for some, as grim as they come. We are now seeing the results of a systemic favoring of loyalty instead of competence. Decades of doing so has stripped the government from its vital reflexes. Reflexes it needed to respond to such urgent issues with suitable speed.

Where is Your Parens Patriae* Now?

Instead, what we see is a narrow-minded mess of a group of people drunk with hubris, trying to save their faces. A “father” figure ought to be dependable, able and willing to assist you in times of need. Below are a few concrete examples of not only gross negligence but also borderline malevolence that need to be called out.

– Meet the “Search and Rescue” Ops: As a country sitting on numerous faultlines, Turkey has been in danger of earthquakes since time immemorial. As science progressed enough to realize the absence of angry deities causing them, so did the efforts to pinpoint riskier areas and prepare urgent responses grew. Modern Turkey, however, witnessed a governmental crackdown on two of its biggest organizations that offer relief on such events: T.C. Kızılayı and Akut. Seeing how these groups were led by people that were unsympathetic to them, they effectively abolished their usefulness. Sure, the new presidential AFAD “formally” took their duties.

You might expect at least some professionalism from an organization that takes such responsibilities, but you would be wrong. The only remaining formal disaster response organization is led by someone who studied to become an Imam, a preacher, and has no experience in response management in the least. One can see such questionable bureaucratic appointments to key positions within the organization, as their “response” was a joke that most did not laugh at while dying.

Brave men and women are spending countless hours doing what they can under their insignia. But lacking any concrete central guidance and oversight, most of what they could do is getting either wasted or bottlenecked; jeopardizing the relief to an essential halt at times. All this happened so that their guys could occupy the “right” seats, under their thumbs; disregarding the principles of such titles.

– Military (im)mobilized: Militaries worldwide are expected to be the most organized and disciplined groups that ought to be ready at a moment’s notice. Such is, or was, the case in Turkey. Owing to the modern history of Turkey and the historical political position of the Turkish military as the guardian of the Republic, conservative Turks tend to despise the classicist Turkish military. Progressive “civilizing” of the armed forces was their theme in the last decade, while still being anxious about the military boogeyman. Despite this, you would expect the ever-ready servicemen to organize aid and relief efforts for the affected regions, and you would expect them to do so immediately.

You would once again be very wrong. Just to prevent the image of the “army as the savior” and not to promote love for the armed forces, they halted military personnel from getting involved for the first two days. They did this in hopes of keeping the army out of sight, removing their presence while downplaying the size of the devastation. But by the time they admitted their mistake and gave the order to a token 3500 military personnel to join the relief efforts, the message was already taken: They would rather have “their” people die than witness the military coming to their rescue.

– Post-factum Construction Permits: Naturally there are construction guidelines on safe housing, safe against an earthquake that is. You might once again expect these guidelines to be strict, and checking mechanisms to be functional. After all, the lives of millions are at stake and the faultlines under the soil are not getting more comfortable. You know what is coming, do you not? Not only checking mechanism was “archaic and dysfunctional” at best, even the gross violations of the said guidelines and laws are bypassed and legalized through a process called “permit peace” campaigns. A “clever” method for distributing post-factum construction permits and “pass” notes from the government regarding ad hoc buildings of all shapes and sizes. “Why?”, one might rightfully ask.

For money, you can’t expect them to make peace with permitless buildings without asking some cash for it now can you? Every time the budget needs some re-balancing at the end of a financial period, “someone” suggests such a campaign and every once in a while they enact them for a year or so. The gist is the difficulty of examining the said buildings and the material used to construct them, and you can imagine how carefully they must have been getting investigated. There is no telling how many of the collapsed buildings were legalized through one of these processes. But given the frequency of these campaigns of late, one can only assume so much. For a grim edit using a recent advertisement of such campaigns, you can see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqV-wX5TVjk (Turkish)

– “Fate”, says the big boss once again: Fate probably was the answer given by the ancient Roman Republic, or even the Hittites before them that suffered disastrous earthquakes on these soils. But not anymore, at least it should not be if one can help it. But the person who occupies the highest seat in the country, like he did many times before, names this event as an act of God. He also proceeds to name Fate as the cause of death for so many. Deaths of so many that could have been prevented. One might welcome a healthy spiritualism to cope with such trauma but this is not it. This is shifting blame, to a deity no less, and washing his hands clean. One might also argue that the only way to remove the dirt from those hands is to strip their skin off altogether.

– Limited Internet Access, a Turkish Classic: With central response being insufficient, various volunteer and philanthropy organizations rushed to help in any way they could. Little they had in terms of cooperation with each other, their best (and most of the times, only) way of communication was the internet, mostly through Twitter. But once concerned voices start asking questions when they feared a potential snowball of dissension against the government, they limited access to the internet/Twitter countrywide.

People who were under debris reached out to those guys on the internet and sent their locations and many got rescued thanks to this. Turning their voices off was the absolute worst thing they could do, and they did so with a smirk on their faces. At the very least it lasted less than a day, but who knows who could not receive a possible rescue in the meantime, when time is of the essence?

Earthquake as a Grim Teacher

There are many more issues to raise, from the government snapping their party logo on the volunteered aid boxes across the country to governors blaming volunteers for “being too jumpy”. All of them being uglier than one other.

But an echo can summarize this whole ordeal sufficiently. Echoing the cries of many survivors who lost loved ones because of such outrageous deeds, I too cry out: Where is the State? Where is the hope?? Where was your Father when you needed him the most?! … He was busy s(h)aving his face.

It would have been difficult to imagine some years ago, at least for me; devastated regions relying mostly on a philanthropy organization of a singer, Ahbap. This organization’s efforts are aided by various entertainers who were not afraid to get their hands dirty. A good kind of dirt, mind you, the kind that is blessed by the gratitude of lives saved and wounds healed.

The kind of dirt that the boss men have on their hands, on the other hand, is the kind that you might come across if you ever try to clean a highly irradiated sewage of a metropolis. And the saddest thing is the fact that this event got their hands only dirtier, now their bloodied hands have even more to be washed up for.

It was coming… The majority clapped when the modern republic was getting ruined… Now all of us are awestruck as its ruins materialized where histories were made… It was coming indeed, but we did not have it coming.

*: Latin for “parent (of the) nation, or the state”. As conservative Turks tend to view their nation as their father, conveniently deified as their God-figure on earth.