The Van earthquake has revealed that Turkey is still a developing country.

There are two types of countries in the world: those with developed organization capacities and those with none.  The ones in the first group are called developed countries; those in the second group are called developing countries. The Van earthquake has revealed that Turkey is still in the second group. There was no considerable improvement in the organization capacity of Turkey from the Marmara earthquake of 1999 to the Van earthquake of 2011. At least this is the conclusion I have drawn from what the Van earthquake suggests. The earthquake has upset all of us, but this sorrow should not overshadow our ability to make a rational assessment. Let me state three points first and then explain how I reached the above judgment.

The first point is this: It is a dereliction of duty that the Red Crescent considered the accommodation needs of the citizens in destroyed buildings and neglected those of the citizens living in damaged ones. This is where the source of the statement “We need 120,000 tents, we have provided 30,000“ comes from. I do not know how we should address the following statement by president of the Red Crescent: “You cannot manage disasters with tents.” This literary statement is evidence that the emergency aid institution of a country located on one of the most important seismic belts of the world has not thought about the issue of earthquake for even fifteen minutes.

And the second point: only 9% of the residences in Van had the compulsory earthquake insurance. The conclusion to be drawn here is an obvious one: it was not only the emergency aid institution but also the citizens who have not gone through a mental transformation process about earthquakes. It also appears that there were no administrative measures to encourage citizens to take out earthquake insurance, either. The administrators of Turkey have shut their eyes to lawlessness becoming the law.

The third point is related directly to the damaged buildings. First, the buildings that had been constructed via public auctions were the most damaged ones. After the Marmara earthquake, everyone said, “we hope this will be the last one.” But it appears that this was not the case. Second, all of the damaged buildings, public or private, had been certified by the municipality as being suitable for accommodation. There clearly was an administrative weakness. Then, it is no coincidence that the “issuance of reconstruction permits by municipalities” remains at the bottom in corruption perception surveys. After the earthquake, Prime Minister Erdoğan stressed that reconstruction regulations would be applied strictly “from now on.” Similar remarks were heard after the Bingöl earthquake of 2010 and the flood in Rize. So, let’s wait and see. Lawlessness is one of the chief manifestations of rightist populism.

This is what I see: the awareness of earthquakes that was evoked right after the Marmara earthquake caused no positive structural change in our minds or in the administrative infrastructure. The awareness of earthquakes was in time replaced by the disaster myopia that Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky taught us years ago. Here is what the 2002 Nobel Economic Prize winners said: as the latest disaster fades from memory, people tend to discount more the risk facing them. Studies reveal that individuals who witness a severe traffic accident tend to insure their cars.

Please imagine this. There stands a giant risk, but as the memories of disaster fade, the possibility of the recurrence of the risk is ignored. Turkey suffers from an institutional capacity problem. “Leader country Turkey” is actually still a developing country. Do not let the palanquin we are on deceive you. Period.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 28.10.2011