Aditya
On 6th February 2023, a massive earthquake struck Turkey and Syria. Turkey has been most affected by this earthquake. Many structures collapsed, resulting in the deaths of many and widespread misery. Though the earthquake has passed, but the number of lives claimed, and the distress it caused, is still increasing. The death toll has already crossed the 41,000 mark. Tens of thousands of people are still missing and more than hundred thousand people are injured. Around 26 million people are affected from this earthquake in both Turkey and Syria. All these data are enough to gauge the impact of this disaster on the lives of the masses. However, apart from this disaster being natural, it is necessary to understand its other aspect as well, that is, the failure of the extreme right-wing Erdoğan government and the whole capitalist system in Turkey. First, let us look at the scientific and geographical reasons behind this earthquake.
Earthquakes are not uncommon to Turkey as it lies at the intersection of three of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust: The Anatolian, Arabian and African plates. Arabia is moving northwards into Europe, causing the Anatolian plate (which Turkey sits on) to be pushed out westwards. The movement of the tectonic plates builds up pressure on fault zones at their boundaries. Earthquakes and ground trembling are brought on by the abrupt release of this pressure. This latest earthquake is likely to have happened on one of the major faults that marks the boundaries between the Anatolian and Arabian plates: either the East Anatolian fault or the Dead Sea Transform fault. These are both “strike-slip faults”, which means they accommodate some motion of plates moving past each other. However, since it is well known that the region falls in an earthquake-prone zone, measures could have been taken to prevent the after-effects of such devastation. Moreover, planning of building cities and dwelling areas should have been made counting in the possibility of such a devastating earthquake. However, the very nature of capitalist system prevents it from undertaking any long-term economic planning or thinking. We will come to what could have been done later in the article.
What Caused Such Devastation?
Due to the earthquake, several of the structures, including some recently constructed apartment complexes, collapsed like sandcastles, burying the residents beneath the wreckage. Many of these buildings were sold as luxury housing “compliant with the latest earthquake safety standards”. The collapse of such buildings is one of the major cause for the deaths of many in this catastrophe. Now, many of the contractors have fled or tried to escape. However, the truth is, without the government’s extensive revisions to real estate and construction laws, all designed to promote the out-of-control expansion of a destructive and voracious construction sector, they would not have been able to proceed. We will discuss further about the policies of the government in the article.
Not only this, but the disaster management mechanisms were not active, nor were rescue (and relief) operations started without delay and effectively. This led to the death of many who could have been saved. Government inaction and poor management are the main reasons why actions were not taken or implemented properly with immediate effect.
Previous Earthquake and the Role of the Government
No one can doubt the extremity of that quake, but it cannot be unseen that the reason why this tragic phenomenon turned disastrous is the complete callousness and lack of empathy shown by the reactionary Erdoğan government. This was not the first quake that shook Turkey. The previous deadliest earthquake in Turkey, which happened in 1999, itself proved the need for an active emergency rescue service and, pre and post-disaster mechanisms, to find the hotspots, plan immediate rescue operations, effectively minimize the damage, and take post disaster measures.
This earthquake has already exposed the capitalist system and its apathy towards the masses. The ‘Justice and Development Party’ is in power from past twenty years, serving their capitalist masters. In these twenty years they had all the time to be prepared for any further disaster. However, not only they failed, in the blind lust of profit, they compromised all the safety measures, changed the laws, sold public properties and robbed the common people and plundered the labour of the country.
The government enacted significant legislative and institutional reforms in the areas of construction, real estate, local governance, and housing finance since 2004. This gave metropolitan and district municipalities unprecedented, broad authority to carry out urban renewal initiatives, form alliances with private companies, and sell publicly-held land and assets to private developers. During this, they bypassed almost all the safety measures just for the greed of a few. The government focused on massive infrastructure and construction as their main economic growth, regardless of the environmental and societal costs. This resulted in depriving many from their homes.
A Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency was established in 2009, and regulations were made which required buildings to be constructed with the latest standards that can absorb the energy of earthquakes. However, not only were the regulations poorly enforced but the Erdoğan government even relaxed those regulations in 2018, hence most buildings were not good enough to withstand the earthquake. In fact, according to the numbers published by the environment and urbanization ministry in 2018, more than half of the buildings of Turkey, around 13 million, violated safety and construction regulations. Moreover, the government has been collecting two “earthquake taxes” following the 1999 earthquake, but no one knows where that money is being spent. That it was not spent on making buildings quake-proof is clearly known by the destruction that this earthquake resulted in.
Despite all failures, only when the death toll crossed many thousands (the UN expects number to be 50,000) Erdoğan accepted that “there are shortcomings.” However, instead of accepting that he is responsible for all these deaths, Erdoğan keeps on giving absurd statements, latest one being that “what happens, happens, this is part of fate’s plan”.
There were multiple more steps taken by the government that weekend that can be mentioned here such as building inspections have been privatised, prioritising profit over expertise, but the gist is that the government gave their whole and sole for benefiting the bourgeoisies. No matter what happens to the working class and the masses or to the environment.
Who is responsible: Just the Erdoğan Government or the Whole Capitalist System
As soon as the earthquake struck and caused a havoc, international capitalist media swung into action. They just started blaming the Erdoğan government and said that the corruption under this government is the main reason for the poor enforcement of safety measures and immediate actions, that the AKP (Justice and Development Party) alone is responsible, that things could have been different if the people in the government would not have been so “greedy”. However, we all know this is as big a joke as saying the pig might fly! The thing is, this capitalist system also knows that the death and devastation caused by the earthquake is not merely a natural disaster, and hence they had to hold someone accountable in order to put the entire capitalist system out of the dock. Hence, the big bourgeoisie are saving themselves and the Erdoğan government is the scapegoat!
With the facts stated above, it is clear that the mass deaths and large-scale destruction were not merely a natural disaster! Erdoğan or his right-wing ‘Justice and Development Party’ alone is not responsible for this calamity, but the whole capitalist system is accountable, of which the current right-wing dispensation is only a representative and manager. In simple words, Erdoğan government is a capitalist government, and its loyalties lie with the capitalist class of Turkey, for whom what happened was ‘only business’. We all know that in this “democracy”, the one who has more support from the capitalists, usually remains in power. Simply put, capitalists give more funds to a party that serves better in their interests. This varies according to the circumstances and their requirements. For instance, in India, earlier Congress was in power until the capitalists needed the fascist party BJP to enforce anti-labour laws indiscriminately, install an authoritarian regime to crush mass movements, resistance and opposition so that the unhindered loot and plunder of labour and nature can be carried out in order to deal with the crisis of profitability. In case of Turkey, the conservative AKP is doing the same and so are in power from past twenty years. Hence, the problem is not with a single party or government but with the entire capitalist system.
What Could Have Been Done?
This is not going to be the last natural calamity. We cannot cease natural phenomena from occurring, but we can minimize the impact of such a phenomena and prevent it from turning into a human disaster. However, again, a capitalist system would never do that until it affects their profits, like in Japan!
We have already mentioned that the government is collecting two “earthquake taxes” since 1999. There were multiple measures that could have been taken in order to be prepared for such disasters. Japan, for instance, which falls under the category of the most earthquake prone countries, has found several ways to deal with such situations. All houses are built to withstand some level of tremor. Every smartphone in Japan is installed with an earthquake and tsunami emergency alert system. It triggers around five to ten seconds prior to the impending disaster. Schools in Japan run regular earthquake drills, some as often as once a month, enabling each person to be self-capable of dealing with immediate situations. Multiple centres can be setup with emergency kits for situations like this, along with training people for the same. In a country like Japan, such exercise becomes necessary even for the machinery of profit to function smoothly.
In China, the communist party found a way to be prepared for such disasters. A National Earthquake Administration was established in 1971 to take charge of monitoring, research, and emergency response for earthquakes. Later, autonomous regions and centrally administrated municipalities were established in each province with their own earthquake bureaus.
Conclusion
A capitalist system can never deal with these types of natural calamities without having major repercussions. Moreover, not only it cannot prevent the aftermaths, but it can cause manmade disasters as well. The ‘land-sinking’ of Joshimath is one recent example of this. Environmental disturbances over the years are the outcome of the rigours exploitation of nature. The air, water, soil, everything is getting more and more polluted. The production is not done according the need of the masses, but to sell in the market for profit. Hence the natural resources are exploited extensively without any attention paid to the destruction of nature and the destruction of the health of the working masses.
However, capitalism naturally keeps driving itself into the abyss of economic, social and political crises. It is inevitable. As a secular tendency, the average rate of profit decreases because the ‘two competitions’ (among capitalists and between capitalists and the working class) force the capitalists to increase the organic composition of capital. The result is the economic crisis. This forces the bourgeoisie especially in the era of imperialist and long depression to resort to the extreme right-wing reaction in order to suppress the resistance of the working class in order to increase the rate of profit by increasing the working day, intensity of labour, etc. This gives rise to far-right and fascist regimes, with the overwhelming economic support of the big bourgeoisie. This is the reason why the governments, such as those in India and Turkey, came to power in the aftermath of different cycles of economic crises.
All in all, only a socialist system is capable of fighting, limiting and stopping the impact of such natural as well as the manmade disasters. Today, the human civilization can only expect destruction, war, ecological crises from the capitalist system. In the end, only conscious and organized struggle for a socialist society and a socialist future will save the human society.
