The statements Erdoğan made in the earthquake zone during the 2024 local elections are exemplary of the relationship between the state and the public and its underlying contradiction. The anger of our people against the predatory fascist order will not rest. On basis of their own experience, they try to understand the rent policies of the fascist palace regime and the reality of the capital order that impoverishes itself, and ferments a new consciousness of struggle. In the first year of the earthquake, the anger of the people is alive and well.
In the first year after the devastating earthquake in the Maraş-Antakya region, the fascist regime, rotten from top to bottom, is threatening to collapse on the political awareness of the people, born in the debris of the catastrophe. The AKP-MHP fascist bloc has been increasing its ideo-political attacks and propaganda in order to turn the earthquake issue, which is one of the main points on the agendas of the 2024 local elections, into political profit and election investment.
Erdoğan, a shameless liar, recklessly tramples on the pain, deprivation and vital demands of the earthquake victims. On the anniversary of the earthquake he visited Antakya, where he said: “If the local and the central government do not cooperate, will aid arrive?” It is a question that tries to blackmail our people into giving the political Islamist their voice– if they do not vote for him, they cannot expect service. This is the fascist ruler’s power play, the most humiliating practice of dishonoring and enslaving our rights. It is an effort to dishonor the people and make them surrender, to turn them into the mass base of the
AKP-MHP fascist bloc, the cannon fodder of fascism.
It is clear that the dictator’s instrumentalization of this political threat and coercion in Antakya is directly related to the political sociology and identity region. The people of Antakya, who chose Can Atalay (TİP, member of parliament, imprisoned since 2022) as their representative, are once again being targeted by the palace regime. Likewise, the fact that the laboring left movement exposed the true face of Erdoğan and the state with practical solidarity with the people affected by the earthquake is one important reason for the regime’s hostility towards Antakya.
Former Minister of Environment and Urbanization and AKP’s candidate for Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Murat Kurum, who distributed the profit cake on behalf of the palace regime, announced that 130.000 people died in the earthquake on the eve of its first anniversary. Murat Kurum neither commits a blunder nor confesses. On the contrary, it reveals the governing procedure of the political Islamist fascist autocracy. This is not uncommon for fascist regimes. It is a technique that seizes the moment to manipulate the people using lies and demagogy; It serves as the most critical tool to suppress the anger, reactions and actions of the masses. Let’s dive deep into our collective memory and remember. During the pandemic, the number of deaths was carefully and tightly hidden. TTB (Türk Tabipleri Birliği; Turkish Medical Association), which announced the real figures initially, was denounced as a ‘traitor’ and ‘enemy’. A year later, however, the real figures were announced once against by the Minister of Health, Fahrettin Koca.
In the first year of the earthquake, we remember everything with clear consciousness. On February 6, 2023, the state collapsed on our people like a row of houses. It left our people, whom it exploited with taxes, robbed for profit, oppressed and ruled with all the tyranny of the fascist regime, alone to the devastation of the earthquake, and left hundreds of thousands of people under the rubble to die. It has not fulfilled any of the social duties and responsibilities that it should undertake as a state. Search and rescue, health, food, transportation, water– public services were virtually suspended. They ignored the calls, crying “Where is the state?” and “Help us, save us” ringing from all earthquake zones. The AKP-MHP regime did not send rescue teams to the earthquake zones where our Kurdish, Alevi and Arab Alevi people were perched in for days, did nothing to meet their vital needs, leaving them to die. This situation was not merely a result of the bureaucratic inconvenience or the centralist structure of the state. Essentially, it was a performance of the racist and discriminatory policy of the political Islamist fascist regime. “Where is the state?”
The state responded to millions of people asking this question with the “state of emergency”. A state of emergency was declared in the ten cities shook by the earthquake, lasting three months. During the hours when our people were waiting to hear from their relatives at the rubble and calling the state for help, the Erdoğan robbed them through AFAD (Afet ve Acil Durum Yönetimi Başkanlığı; state agency for disaster management) with the IBAN numbers published to collect donations.
State rescue and aid organizations went to Maraş, Malatya and Adıyaman, which were hit by the earthquake the hardest, especially Antakya, three days later. The Turkish bourgeois army did not intervene during and immediately after the earthquake, as tens of thousands of soldiers were deployed in the invasion war across the border in Rojava. The gendarmerie force, instead, was present, showing off their rifles in an effort to control public solidarity and anger within the framework of the state of emergency. They tried to break the chain of solidarity and cooperation of the laboring left movement, especially HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi; left-wing, pro-Kurdish party, now DEM Parti) The state, which has all the capacity to intervene in earthquakes, followed a plan according to the political needs and wishes of fascist ruler Erdoğan.
We haven’t forgotten. AFAD, Red Crescent, UMKE (Ulusal Medikal Kurtarma Ekibi; National Medical Rescue Team) etc. The state with its institutions was engaged in a predatory practice. From the first day after the earthquake, the Red Crescent did not distribute tents, but traded them. They were caught red-handed. He made a profit by selling thousands of tents to the Friends Association and other organizations for double the price. The earthquake process was turned into an act of plunder by the specially organized bureaucrats of the robbery scheme. As if tent and food sales were not enough, the Red Crescent also made history with blood merchanting. Its president, Kerem Kınık, defended the fascist regime with statements legitimizing his actions. Leaning on Erdoğan, he continued to manage Kızılay, which has long been known for corruption. AFAD confiscated the aid materials sent to earthquake victims, giving some of them to political Islamist gangs in Syria. This corrupt, mafia-like system has seized the most basic living needs of millions of people who are struggling with poverty and hunger. The fascist palace regime, which has mastered all forms of fraud, widely resorted to printing and distributing AKP, Red Crescent and AFAD logos upon the aid received from international solidarity organizations, governments and people. Thousands of children disappeared in the aftermath of the earthquake, approximately three thousand orphans were given into the care of political Islamist-fascist sects registered for child abuse.
The 39 billion collected by the earthquake tax, which was enacted after the 1999 earthquake, was used not for precautions, but for the profit policies of the AKP government. The AKP-MHP fascist bloc further strengthened its own capital groups under these profit-making policies. The funds created for the earthquake were transferred to AKP contractors and MHP mafia through public tenders. After February 6 2024, the fascist palace regime, which exploited the sentiments of solidarity and scarcity of our rights, announced that it had collected 60 billion TL (Turkish Lira) by organizing campaigns. This money, again, was wired to the capital class. The 3 billion TL donated by Cengiz Holding to the aid campaign launched by the fascist regime in the week of the earthquake was repaid to Eti Alüminyum AŞ, affiliated with Cengiz Holding, as 3 billion 10 million 545 thousand 522 TL on the same day. The fascist regime of the bourgeoisie announced in the newspapers that they made payments from the state’s coffers under the name of incentive fund.
We won’t forget anything. All the facts seem to have been engraved on the mirror of our consciousness with a steel-tipped nail. It remains fresh in our memories that the stock market earnings of construction companies peaked on the first day of the earthquake. How could we ever forget? Construction companies, build-and-sell contractors, TOKİ (Toplu Konut İdaresi Başkanlığı; Mass Housing Development Associattion)and other parasitic firms who are accomplices of the regime, which turned the earthquake into the disaster of the century, have again flocked to the profit cake the past year. They embarked on new plunders that go hand in hand with ecological destruction. The AKP-MHP fascist bloc promised houses to earthquake victims in the 2023 elections. They marketed dreams to hundreds of thousands of them.
Today, one year after, millions of people are condemned to live in tents and containers. Hundreds of thousands of people are waiting desperately to move from tents to containers, let alone to get the promised housing. Infrastructure deprivation continues in all its dimensions in the destroyed and heavily damaged cities. The fascist chiefdom regime, which staged fake shows of power with tales of sending humans to space, has not been able to rebuild any city destroyed by the earthquake. The most basic infrastructural needs such as electricity, water, sewage and roads still continue. The fascist chief, who boasts of construction companies in the world, continues his game of deceiving and distracting our people with performative ceremonies.
The AKP-MHP fascist bloc, which regained control of the fascist regime in the 2023 general elections, using this situation to further cut back on our rights
The statements Erdogan made in the earthquake zone during the 2024 local elections are exemplary of the relationship between the state and the public and its underlying contradiction. The anger of our people against the predatory fascist order will not rest. On basis of their own experience, they try to understand the rent policies of the fascist palace regime and the reality of the capital order that impoverishes itself, and ferments a new consciousness of struggle. In the first year of the earthquake, the anger of our people is alive and well.
Under these conditions, we are headed towards local elections.
The earthquake issue is still the most crucial agenda of political struggle and political localization. It is a burning issue that touches the lives of millions of people, especially in Istanbul, Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, which are earthquake zones. The laboring left movement should further ignite the political struggle on this issue during the local elections and organize it as a way of reckoning against the fascist regime.
*Editorial of the 154th issue of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated February 9.