26.08.1999

Quake hits workers

Last week’s earthquake hit the industrial heartland of Turkey - the most urbanised part of the country. An important section of the working class, together with poor migrants from the countryside, who came looking for employment, live in the affected region.

One fifth of the entire population is concentrated here. Practically the whole auto industry, great portions of the petrochemical industry and durable consumer goods production and many other branches are located in this region. Levels of trade union organisation are highest.

This region played no small part in the magnificent struggle to throw off the state-controlled, ‘yellow’ trade unions in the 60s and 70s. It was in the forefront of establishing independent, left-oriented trade unions and their confederation, DISK (Revolutionary Trade Unions Confederation). Here too the communist movement has traditionally been highly developed organisationally.

One of the most important US spying and monitoring centres was based in the area, before it was forced out of the country following a determined struggle of the left and the peace movement (changing technology played a role too).

At least 35,000 are dead and almost the same number seriously injured. Thousands of houses collapsed, 250,000 people became homeless, the basic services were crippled and the infrastructure is in chaos. Many factories were damaged to such an extent that they will have to be demolished.

The narrow coastal strip on the southern shores of the Bay of Izmit on the Marmara Sea was a popular resort for the Istanbul middle class. However, as well as homes for retired civil servants, it also contained flats built by cooperatives financed by the savings of workers from state enterprises. Most of them lie in ruins. In one of them, the former president of the Turk-Is, the largest and oldest trade union confederation, and his family died.

In a country where there has been a serious earthquake almost every second year, this was the first in the recent period to strike at such an important urbanised and industrialised area. Apart from the very high number of deaths and huge destruction, it will cripple the economy and impact on the whole of society for years to come.

The earthquake has exposed contradictory aspects of the nature of Turkey as a medium-developed capitalist country. It displayed all the shortcomings and inadequacies related to underdevelopment.

Every schoolchild in Turkey knows that the country is situated on the intersection of geological fault lines, where earthquakes are liable to occur. Those involved in the building trade know that there are certain regulations that must be followed in order to ensure earthquake-resistant structures. There are many state and municipal employees whose statutory duty is to check buildings from planning to construction and to ensure implementation. As the saying goes, it is the buildings, not the earthquakes, that are dangerous.

In fact sub-standard housing kills many poor and low-income families every year. In a period of massive internal migration to the cities the building contractors were king. Hand in hand with politicians at local and national level, they agreed regional or city plans and rapidly constructed hundreds of high-rise buildings. Not only did they get rich; they oiled the wheels of the political parties. This went on in every city, along with illegal housing, the so-called gecekondu (‘built overnight’) slum areas. No public authority controlled or regulated them.

Get-rich-quick merchants also won contracts for public buildings and became notorious for their sub-standard construction and plundering of state resources. Consequently after the earthquake there was hardly a public building left standing. Even military buildings, which were supposedly subjected to better quality control, collapsed. The jewel in the crown - the motorway network around Istanbul - was wrecked. Many viaducts and bridges fell to the ground, preventing road transportation. Public telecom company buildings also crumbled, bringing down the entire telecommunication network

You need look no further than the current president of Turkey, Suleyman Demirel. Before he entered politics he was a civil engineering contractor. One of the buildings he was responsible for was a hospital in one of the eastern provinces. It collapsed years ago in an earlier earthquake, killing many and depriving the survivors of basic medical assistance. Of course nobody asked any questions or held him responsible.

However, based on this and similar primitive accumulation, finance capital grew and became dominant in Turkey. Parallel to this some contractors became ‘developers’ with international clout. They are now building all around the Middle East, Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The cooperation of finance capital with transnational companies and its integration with global finance capital forced modernisation on certain aspects of the state. In the areas where industrial development took place, working class struggle forced an improvement in living conditions. Compared to other parts of Turkey, these areas were highly developed and state organisation became more sophisticated.

Therefore, after the initial shock of the earthquake, the dynamic aspects of the state pulled the creaking old machinery into action. Here better organisation and the ability to employ substantial resources, not available to most of the underdeveloped world, became evident.

The availability of doctors and medicine, use of heavy construction machinery, manpower, rapid restoration of power, communication and transportation - these were indicators of the advanced side of medium-level development.

The promotion of primitive accumulation and capitalist development was one of the most important aspects of the modern Turkish state’s public image. Any opposition to this plunder was condemned as an attack on the free market economy and crushed by state attacks on public associations, political parties and trade unions.

Another important aspect of the state was its all-pervasive nature, which does not allow any public or civil initiative apart from capitalist enterprise. This created a myth of a state benevolently granting favours and providing services to an appreciative population.

As the state became the most important provider of employment, basic services and social facilities, and as it controlled finance and resources, excluding the ordinary working people from decision-making, many came to expect it to solve all problems.

The earthquake shattered such illusions. For those who faced extreme danger, those who attempted with few resources to rescue their loved ones from the rubble, it became obvious - if only fleetingly - that the main purpose of this state is to oppress.

The army was not sent to help civilians until it had put its own house in order: that is, putting in place preparations to quell any rebellion from the disgusted population. About 50,000 troops were eventually sent into the quake zone, and there were calls for the declaration of a state of emergency or martial law. The large but creaking state machinery, unable to act quickly and decisively (unless of course it is faced by a political emergency caused by working class revolt), only started to function after the third day in assisting the public.

However, the nature of the strange alliance in the shaky coalition government did not make things easy. For example, the fascist minister of health committed every possible stupidity, such as attempting to refuse medical help and blood donations from Armenia and Greece as they do not fit into his ideal of pure Turkish blood. He also asked many foreign search and rescue teams to leave too early. However, when the US navy’s hospital ships arrived a week after the quake, he became like a lapdog.

An old song of the working class of Turkey says: “Eyes that look at fire long enough will not cry.” The day-to-day existence of workers in Turkey is a life and death struggle. Now our class must try to recover from this death and destruction, as it has in the past from the onslaught of the class enemy.

It has lost many experienced trade unionists, local leaders and communists this time. However, the working class will look positively to the future. It will rebuild its livelihood despite the prospect of unemployment and homelessness. It cannot expect anything positive from the state. It will develop its informal self-help organisations. They need concrete international solidarity.

But we must keep in mind that the Turkish state does not even allow the independent collection of donations for workers. In Turkey to collect donations needs permission from the council of ministers! They force all international aid to pass through them.

It is vital that European communists do not fall into the liberal ‘aid trap’. Any aid through the state or its non-governmental channels will not reach those for whom it is intended: the working class and urban poor, now devastated and homeless. This ‘aid’ will replenish the coffers of the state and line the pockets of contractors and financiers who have already planned the next phases of development for the region.

European communists must strive to compel the trade union movement to act to provide assistance directly to their respective counterparts in Turkey.

Not a penny from working class collections should be passed to the Turkish state. All efforts must be based on direct solidarity with the workers and their unions.

Aziz Demir