Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, going to talk. Behind her, tents and more tents, a sea of them, all of them people who have lost everything. Surrounding him, all his entourage: ministers, wife, broad-shouldered men with sunglasses looking at the horizon and a girl very close, so that no one forgets that we are in pre-election campaign.
In front of the president, all the microphones of all the televisions from the country. Like every day for the last few days, Erdogan is going to speak from the disaster zone. “We are doing everything and we are going to continue doing everything necessary so that our citizens don’t go hungry, they are not left out in the open, and that they do not feel neglected or without help& rdquor ;, says Erdogan, with his characteristic tone and rhythm. The way of talking about him, for any Turk, is unmistakable.
“But we are completely intolerant of the merchants of chaos who provoke our nation, especially those who spread false or unfounded news on social networks & rdquor ;, continues Erdogan. serkan, who watches the speech live from his phone, explodes. “You see it? It just can’t be! There are thousands of people still trapped under the rubble and he only talks about this & rdquor ;, he tells his friend, sitting next to him, who is also watching the speech.
“It’s unbelievable, I don’t understand it. They have failed in the rescue, they reacted very late, the rescue teams have been receiving a ridiculous budget for some time… You saw it? I read about it the other day in the newspaper. And Erdogan only talks about the enemies of the countrythose who criticize him. It’s incredible & rdquor ;, says Serkan’s friend. Both young lads are from Adanaone of the provinces affected by the earthquake that shook southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria last Monday morning and has already claimed the lives of 25,000 people.
Although Adana is not the most damaged town, it has seen hundreds of dead: the city is large, with almost two million inhabitants, and the buildings that have collapsed in the place had, in some cases, more than 10 floors. Very few people have been rescued from them. Most have died: since this Saturday —after more than six days since the earthquake— the rescue tasks have become more of a body search among the rubble than in a race against time to save lives.
“I am convinced,” says Serkan, “that they will use the state of emergency this week to postpone the elections. They will do something. I’m sure.”
In spring
In principle, if nothing changes, the presidential election in Turkey are scheduled to next may 14; but rumors are already circulating Ankarathe capital, with which the date is too close, which is impossible, too soon: that with potentially 13 million internally displaced — the inhabitants of the ten affected provinces — the country cannot hold presidential elections that were expected to be both historic and difficult.
According to most polls, Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003, had serious chances of losing facing an opposition reinvigorated since his electoral victory in the mayoral offices of Istanbul and Ankara in 2019. The earthquake, the deaths, everything that has happened since, changes everything.
“After the 1999 earthquake —which occurred near istanbul and claimed the lives of 17,000 people—Turkey learned many lessons: new building codes, regulations, urban planning, evacuation plans… But over time, all this was forgotten& rdquor ;, he assures the American media outlet ‘Vox’, Sinan Ciddiadjunct professor at the georgetown universitywhich continues: “When the AKP, Erdogan’s party, came to power, the temptation to give any building permit for companies to build whatever, regardless of codes and standards, prevailed. Now we are seeing the effects of this, especially in the southeast, because what we are seeing is that the government claims that the destroyed buildings are all old, but this is not true.”
A media war
Meanwhile, in the mediathe war has begun: those loyal to the president—the vast majority—are focused on showing the rescue work and the miracles that occur in them. On one occasion, a few days ago, a young man began to yell at a public television journalist Turkish that how could it be, that it was outrageous, that no one had gone to his building, neither help nor rescue, and that his family, days later, was still down there, buried, abandoned under the rubble from his old house.
The journalist, while being yelled at, kept talking about something else. And then, in the middle of the connection, the signal was cut off, the image was gone, the newscast continued.
Related news
On public radio, an ad has started playing. Between sad violins, a man speaks: “We wish all the turkish nation a speedy recovery. Such a catastrophe, such an earthquake, harms everyone equally. no nation in the world I would be able to survive an earthquake like this without deaths, without going through the pain that we Turks are going through. But our nation is strong, it is resilient. Turkey will rise”.
A Turkish saying sums it up perfectly. The Turks use it for everything, and now – a variant of it – it is used by the pro-government media: ‘Cografya kaderdir’. geography is destiny.