02.03.2023

Faults and mirrors

The huge loss of life seen in the Turkey-Syria earthquakes can be directly traced back to the state’s bungled response, endemic corruption and clampdowns on the self-activity of progressive youth, writes Esen Uslu

More than 7,000 tremors have been recorded in the region devastated by powerful earthquakes on February 6. Most of them were small aftershocks that may have had only a local effect, but over 40 of them were powerful enough to be considered major. In reality a series of earthquakes is continuing to hit south-eastern Turkey and north-western Syria. On February 20 two powerful quakes took place in Hatay province. Much of what remained standing after February 6 lay flattened as a result.

In its own gradual accumulation and momentous releases of energy, the earth’s both imperceptible and cataclysmic movements have sculpted the environment of the region. We humans barely understood the basics, but have lived in the region for more than seven millennia, yet after each disaster it seems we are still hapless and helpless.

In the modern era, we have become accustomed to the idea that science and technology have been progressing in leaps and bounds and are now usually able to solve the problems that the earth throws at us from time to time. However, the history that helped shape our social fabric and institutions is now staring us in the face - the earthquakes have provided us with a mirror that cannot be ignored. Society’s realities and faultlines are clear to see. Yes, the science and technology developed by humanity has provided tools for the peoples of Turkey to alleviate the disastrous consequences of earthquakes, but implementing the necessary measures requires a different set of institutions and a totally different social fabric.

Youth, including university students and leftwing activists, were the first to respond. They started collections, and organised transport and volunteers to the region. In many remote parts of the disaster zone they were the first to attend the victims and provide assistance despite meagre resources.

But, in a way, that was no surprise. Turkish youth have had this in their DNA since the Gediz earthquake of 1970, when the revolutionary youth movements were first to the scene. Their efforts turned out to be very important for Dev-Genç (Revolutionary Youth Federation), which gained enormous prestige among the wider population. It was the same with the 1975 Lice earthquake, which gave a new impetus to the revolutionary youth movement, enabling it to regain confidence following military rule.

This link between voluntary activism and revolutionary politics has been very well understood by the reactionary forces of the state, which have attempted to do everything they could to end it. However, despite numerous state interventions, the revolutionary youth organisations and political parties cooperated and remained dominant in several areas.

In 2023 the young groups were using social media to communicate, but Twitter was cut off for a day - a day that was critical when it came to saving lives. Mobile networks had collapsed, but no attempts were made to bring in an adequate number of temporary mobile stations. While army and police wireless communications were working, none of the organisations of the state-run Earthquake Humanitarian Aid Campaign (AFAD) had any satellite phones. Real foresight! Such an absence of any means of independent communication costs many lives.

State control

After the 1999 earthquake, an independent association called the Search and Rescue Association (AKUT) came to prominence, and the state in its wisdom has done its best to curtail its activities and absorb its aims and functions into AFAD, and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, run by the ministry of interior affairs. And, following the ‘normal’ practice in state employment, the leading AFAD positions were filled by cronies attached to president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), who mainly received their higher education in faculties of religious studies and usually had no previous experience in disaster handling.

Meanwhile, the traditional disaster relief organisation, the Red Crescent, which has been long incorporated into the state, has lost its prominent position despite having a steady income stream from its monopoly production of bottled sparkling natural mineral water, as well as operating the country’s blood bank. It is now used first and foremost as an instrument in the grandiose plans of the government to organise ‘assistance’ to the poorer Islamic countries in Asia and Africa.

When I was a young activist in late 60s, I witnessed a branch congress of the Red Crescent, and was shocked to see the tooth-and-nail fighting between rightwing politicians within it who were striving to be elected to local office. I remember thinking at the time, ‘Thank god they did not fight us with such vigour’, and later I learnt that being on one of those committees was very important in climbing the ladder of power. Committee membership enabled such careerists to brush tails with top state officials and the higher echelons of the main political parties - and enabled them to gain control of huge sums of money.

As one natural disaster was followed by the next, their resources were increased and keeping quasi-NGOs such as Red Crescent under control became very important for the party in power. So there were well publicised fights to maintain the dominant party’s grip. Then in the 2000s, when the AKUD was formed, Red Crescent was demoted to a second-rate organisation, but the majority of the executive committee were still closely connected to prominent politicians.

The traditional organised force with some sort of readiness to respond to natural disasters was the army - it was expected to take the leading role in search and rescue efforts. After the 60s, when other state organisations were beefed up, the meddling of the army top brass in the day-to-day running of state affairs was partially limited by measures to bring them under civilian control.

During the years of military rule and its immediate aftermath, such ‘civilian control’ was maintained, but the reality was all too apparent: the army had the necessary manpower and equipment dispersed over a vast area, so they were the first to act. The top brass used this position to maintain and strengthen its control in the form of additional powers extended during an emergency - but their definition of ‘emergency’ was, of course, wider than natural disasters.

The secret Security and Public Order Assistance Protocol of 1997 enabled the military to conduct internal security operations without permission from the civilian authorities. The 1999 earthquakes were managed under that protocol by the army, but its response was clearly totally inadequate. However, in the face of such failure, the army began to reorganise its search and rescue teams. Then the protocol was revoked in 2010 and after the attempted coup the army’s role in disaster management was still further reduced.

As a result, for two full days in February the disaster management structure under the civilian control of the ministry of interior was waiting for instructions from the president. Yes, it may have been hard to foresee such a widespread disaster - the affected area was far larger than had previously been the case - but the ‘civilian-controlled’ management has been an utter failure.

Building sham

The dictum of past disasters was: ‘Earthquakes do not kill - the buildings do the killing!’ In other words, the major cause of loss of life was falling masonry and collapsing buildings. So, after such a turbulent history of earthquakes, one would expect tighter building codes and safer construction practices to counter the threat, surely?

That was the crux of the matter. In the ancient city of Antioch - present-day Antakya - the Habib Al-Najjar Mosque (‘Habib the Carpenter’, according to the Islamic vision on Christianity, was one of the first martyrs) collapsed following an earthquake. Most probably it had been built on the foundations of a much earlier pagan temple, which was later converted into a church, then a mosque, as the area was contested between Christian and Islamic social groups. The latest version was rebuilt after an earthquake in 1875.

Only a few grandiose buildings have been constructed with such care and attention - even state and other public buildings were not. Municipality buildings, police stations, prisons and many similar ‘important’ buildings suffered the same disgraceful collapse. I have been wondering what has happened to the most infamous of them all - the 1,000-mile concrete border wall - but have so far been unable to get any first-hand information.

The cause of this can be traced back to the development of capitalism in Turkey. The internal displacement of people from villages to cities started in the 1950s and has continued ever since. As the people flocked to urban centres and became wage-workers, they had to solve their housing needs themselves. There has been enormous pressure to open publicly owned land as building plots. However, the Turkish state bureaucracy has not been able to organise the building of habitable suburbs itself - instead it turned a blind eye to the de facto privatisation - or pillage - of public land for use as small building plots.

Here unauthorised housing, known as gecekondu (built overnight), mushroomed. As the mass movement of people changed voting behaviour in the regions affected, politicians began to award title-deeds, set up utility services, and accepted the gecekondu into the recognised housing fold through ‘amnesties’ declared for illegal construction. Eventually single-storey gecekondu were often replaced by blocks containing eight-10 flats.

The construction boom quickly became a ‘get rich quick’ scheme for local AKP cronies - state-owned banks assisted them by providing credit. And after the 1999 earthquake an ‘urban regeneration’ policy was implemented to replace old buildings with even higher flats. The old gecekondu areas as well as prime agricultural land around big cities such as Istanbul quickly became skyscraper cities. According to a Turkish Statistics Institute report published in December 2022, a ‘Building and Housing Quality Survey’ in 2021 shows that 47% of the 25 million households live in buildings constructed after 2001 - in the zone affected by the earthquake, the figure is 51%. It is clear then that the government cannot realistically blame previous or ancient building practices - the disaster’s ‘man-made component’ occurred under the AKP regime.

The chair of the local chamber of geological engineers says the ground in the area affected is like “over-boiled rice”. The buildings mostly used sand taken from the salty sea to make concrete, which eventually led to the corrosion of support structures and their separation from the load-bearing concrete. In single-storey buildings such concrete may last for 20-30 years - but in an earthquake it will quickly fall apart.

It is clear then that it is the practices of most contractors - without proper engineering scrutiny or building control from the municipalities - that laid the foundation stones of the disaster. And from bottom to top everybody is aware of that. But, as Muslims say, Allah Kareem (‘God is bountiful’), so there is no need to bother too much about science and technology.

The AKP-led authorities have arrested a handful of construction contractors to placate the public outrage following the earthquake and will shortly be launching show trials, no doubt to gain time. But, as I tried to demonstrate, the criminal intent and negligence is built into the system.

Now the AKP is planning to postpone the elections scheduled for June for at least one year, in the belief that a new construction boom might improve their electoral chances. All this means that winning the hearts and minds of the mainly working class people most affected by the disaster is crucial. No doubt the revolutionary youth who are selflessly working in the ruins are doing their best to enlighten and educate people in order to avoid a perpetual AKP dictatorship.