By Mashuq Kurt
Originally published February 21, 2023 in Le Monde
On February 6, a devastating series of earthquakes hit the southeast provinces of Turkey and the northwest region of Syria. As of February 15, the death toll surpassed 44,000, with more than 100,000 injured and tens of thousands of people still under the rubble with little hope of survival. On the 10th day, there are millions of people in urgent need of shelter, heating, clean water and essential needs, while the region is undergoing severe winter conditions with the weather dropping to -5°C and even -10°C. Independent experts warn against widespread public health issues and epidemic outbreaks if urgent measures are not considered immediately.
While the humanitarian catastrophe is causing one of the biggest tragedies in this region, the natural disaster is exacerbated by a political one. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is right in calling the earthquake the catastrophe of the century, yet his government has avoided taking responsibility for the level of destruction and losses, painting it as a tragic destiny that no country or authority could have prepared for.
While the Islamist government is pinning the blame on the supernatural, encouraging citizens to seek refuge in faith and destiny has been a particularly effective way to avert attention away from decades of mismanagement and avoid responsibility altogether. However, this catastrophe is a direct result of the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) twenty years of governance in creating conditions that predisposed the current tragedy.
Erdogan’s party came to power in late 2002, following the destruction caused by the 1999 Marmara Earthquake and subsequent cycles of corruption that successfully eliminated the coalition government of the time. In a way, the AKP rose in prominence on the rubble created by the 1999 Marmara Earthquake. They have exploited construction and infrastructure building in their favor since, despite gradually creating conditions that cannot withstand such catastrophe with over twenty years of poor urban planning, negligence, corruption, clientelism, nepotism and utilitarian electoral strategies.
Built without a permit
Since 2002, the AKP granted a dozen construction amnesties, the biggest of which took place in 2018 right before the presidential elections, when Erdoğan assumed full authority over every institution in the country, leaving it without any checks and balances. It is estimated that over 7 million buildings benefitted from the amnesty, 300,000 of which are in the 10 cities most affected by the recent earthquake.
The 2018 amnesty granted legal registration documents to buildings constructed without planning permission or fire and earthquake safety regulations. Moreover, around $40 billion of earthquake taxes since 2002 and massive profit generated by construction amnesties have been misused without accountability or transparency. The death toll and the level of destruction are a direct result of systemic political corruption, state-corporate crimes, negligence and construction amnesties.
While the AKP dug the grave for millions of people over the 20 years of its corrupt and negligent governance, they also failed to intervene in the human catastrophe caused by the earthquakes quickly and effectively. For two full days, rescue teams could not reach the city of Hatay, where the roads, seaport and airport were damaged, and the building of the official Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) went to rack and ruin.
Furthermore, hospitals, military barracks, state buildings, highways and roads, schools and public buildings across the region were seriously damaged or collapsed, rendering the rescue operations impossible to be effective.
Political Fault Lines
In addition, the official rescue teams of AFAD and other state organizations tried to monopolize the humanitarian efforts by preventing or intimidating other civil organizations, although their staff were untrained and ineffective in handling such a big disaster. As a result, thousands of people died because of hypothermia and a lack of equipment, know-how and effective coordination, rendering this catastrophe a political one.
While tectonic plates recognize no borders, the recent earthquakes triggered political fault lines across a wide swath of national, political, ethnic, religious and sectarian differences and boundaries. Many members of Kurdish and Alevi minorities feel completely abandoned and express that aid and support are not evenly distributed, while the Syrian refugees – which consist of 12% of the population of the affected region – are expected to resolve problems on their own.
Looting, lynching, nepotism in aid distribution and racist slurs towards refugees have become an ordinary aspect of daily life in the region, while state authorities are busy with maintaining their public image. The common feeling among the millions directly affected by the earthquake is despair, demoralization, and anger. They feel abandoned to death and misery while the government authorities utilize the disaster for the upcoming general elections to take place no later than June 18, 2023.
According to Article 78 of the Turkish Constitution, elections can only be postponed by a year in a situation of war. Yet, former senior politician Bülent Arınç recently made a statement asking for the postponement of the election following initial hints by Erdoğan, who is asking for a year to dedicate to recovery efforts. It seems that the AKP plans to scapegoat a few constructors, as was the case in the 1999 Marmara Earthquake, and create a de facto situation to make the current emergency rule [that was decreed for 3 months] a permanent one.
For that, however, they need to come out of the wreck and deal with the basic needs and the rightful anger of citizens, who demand justice, accountability, and transparency. It seems like a full-circle moment for the political legacy of the AKP, rising from the rubble of one earthquake and getting stuck under the wreck of another.
Mashuq Kurt, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Law and Criminology at Royal Holloway University of London and a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow