Some Notes on the Earthquake in Turkey

1. There were two waves; one of them is 7.8, the next one 7.5. It hit 10 provinces.
2. Thousands of buildings collapsed. The body county passed 11,000 today. And these are the numbers coming from hospital morgues. Thousands of people are still missing.
3. Earthquake is natural, the consequences are very political and socio-economic.
4. All these ruined buildings were constructed by Turkish construction companies and monopolies with cheap material. At least, back when I was an undergrad in Turkey, I remember our comrades from civil engineering department were waging struggle against capitalist transformation of their faculties, how bosses have science in their service to make more houses with a low budget. Safety is not a concern for these capitalists.
5. There was another big earthquake. It was in 1999. The capitalist state of Turkey is such a lowly state that it did not send any proper aid to Düzce in the first week of the 17 August 1999 earthquake. Working people, socialists, trade unions and democratic mass organizations that brought aid to Düzce and set up camps in the first week. In the second week, before the state brought aid, it chose to attack the existing aid tents with riot police first and then provided its own “aid”. But even then, determined communists and organizers continued along with our dearest working class people.
6. However, one man and his lackeys don’t allow civil forces to help people in the region. Because they are the state, you know.. It is supposed to be their area. They are even very slow to deliver international rescue teams to the region.
7.  Another mind-blowing part is about the state’s inability to reach a province nearby Turkish border. Yes, you didn’t hear wrong. Among these ten provinces, there is one which still couldn’t get help. It is Hatay, Antakya. You can search these names to see what is going on. The roads, hospitals, police station that Turkish state built are all rubble now. Even the airports! That’s a reason why aid planes can’t land.
8. The government does not mobilize army. Some people say that it is because they are afraid of army. When the military gets involved, it can have a say in the politics, raising the threat of a coup. This same army was just bombing a Kurdish town in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), a town that was also hit by the earthquake.
9. Sorry, it is a grim summary I gave you. But that’s what it is now. My party, Labor Party of Turkey (EMEP), along with Workers Party of Turkey (TIP), Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), and Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) are working all around the country to mobilize our people to get in solidarity. I am 100% sure that there are other countless socialist, communist and progressive organizations like those I named, working for our people. I am sure that even though this bourgeois gang doesn’t allow these packages to be sent, our people will find a way to get in there to meet with victims.
10. So, we will win. We will win with the understanding that our working people did not deserve this. We will clean this blood and dust together. After that, we will come back for what has been stolen from us.
*It is Turkey and Syria though. But my notes are mostly related the Turkish side of the border.
Ekim Kilic is a Kurdish journalist and the Co-Chair of the NWU NY Chapter
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