Türkiye earthquake elections | The New Yorker

Homeownership was part of Erdogan’s vision of a modern, consumer-led middle class. To speed up the construction of more housing, the AKP has continued to make developers use private companies to inspect their projects. Istanbul’s greatest natural and historical assets — its silhouette, lush forests, Bosphorus, and ancient streets — have become Erdogan’s personal surplus. The skyline was filled with huge cranes and towers, and the streets were rattling from jackhammers at all hours. The Istanbul Municipality had a master plan, which was created under the leadership of Huseyin Kaptan, a professor of urban planning. It included the creation of ecoregions to protect boreal forests and water reserves. But in 2011, during his re-election campaign, Erdoğan started talking about what he called his “crazy project,” the Istanbul Canal — essentially, a second waterway to be built towards the west of the city, between the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Marmara. , dividing European Istanbul into two parts. He also announced plans for a third airport in northern Istanbul, which means the construction of runways in an area where strong winds and migratory birds blow. All this expansion required more highways, more metros, more shopping malls, more apartment buildings, more roads, and another bridge over the Bosphorus. The contracts for most of this development went to the Gang of Five. Kaptan resigned in protest.

Turkey’s construction boom has been effective in many ways. In the first decade of Erdogan’s rule, GDP per capita tripled. The Economist promoted the “Turkish model”, writing that the AKP “strengthened the country’s prestige and showed that the coming to power of religious people does not necessarily mean a dramatic break in relations with the West”. The Brookings Institution has described Turkey as “the most dynamic experiment with political Islam among fifty-seven countries in the Muslim world.”

“You never worry about whether or not to put your shirt on when we first got married.”

Cartoon Lisa Donnelly

In 2012, Erdogan announced another grandiose project: a shopping center in the style of the old Ottoman military barracks, in Gezi Park, a piece of green space on Taksim Square, the bustling center of Istanbul and the heart of the bustling nightlife. On May 28, 2013, a group of young environmental activists sat in the park to protest the project. After the police tried to clear the area, the protest turned into an uprising involving hundreds of thousands of people in more than seventy cities. Erdoğan was furious, and responded with a police crackdown that resulted in 11 deaths, thousands of injuries, and arrests. The protests were a real threat to him: they involved not only young people but also middle-class families who were tired of overgrowth and angered by the government’s use of violence against peaceful protesters.

Then, in December of that year, a series of audio recordings were released on social media by former allies of Erdogan, followers of the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, who held key positions in the judicial system, state ministries, and national media. , the education system, and the national police. (Gulen denies any involvement in the release of the audio recording.) Erdogan and Gulen’s supporters began to quarrel over a range of political issues. The recordings — of Erdogan, one of his sons and ministers — revealed to the public that Erdogan was granting private building permits on public lands in exchange for bribes. In one tape, Erdoğan, after learning of an unsatisfactory bribe, tells his son Bilal, “Don’t take it. Whatever we promised he must fulfill…. What do you think about this act? But don’t worry, they will fall into our lap.” (Erdogan said the audio was fake.)

Osman Can, a former judge of the Constitutional Court and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Justice and Development Party between 2012 and 2015, recalls that “the spell was broken with the Gezi protests.” “With the revelations of corruption, an era of anxiety began. There was an atmosphere of ‘everything is going to be fine, everything is under control.’ Now they started to fear. The fear was existential.” Thousands of Gulenists were ousted from office, hollowing out state institutions. Musila Yapıcı, a member of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects who took part in the Gezi protests, was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for helping to try to overthrow the government. Tayfun Kahraman, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Chamber of Urban Planners and Head of the Department of Earthquake Risk Management and Urban Renewal in Istanbul, who also spoke during Gezi, received a similar sentence. In 2013, a pro-Erdoğan newspaper ran the headline “The power of architects and engineers is over”.

When I first visited Iskenderun, three weeks after the earthquakes, the city still lacked running water. Mountains of rubble replaced the streets, and the buildings still standing were severely damaged. Iskenderun was completely dark at night. Everywhere, people were leaving, packed in vans with stoves, brushes, mops, and buckets—even the front doors had their hinges torn off. People sleep in tents in parks and on roadsides.

Near the site of a collapsed elementary school and church, I meet three engineers, one American and the other two Turkish. They told me that determining the specific cause of each building’s collapse required a thorough investigation. The expert must evaluate the quality of the concrete and the rebar; whether the support columns on the lower floors of the building have been removed to provide more commercial space, as is common in Turkey; and if the foundation has been laid deep enough.

However, the authorities began arresting hundreds of people involved in the construction work across the region. On a plane, I met a judge who told me that he thought every single one of them was guilty.

In 2019, Ekrem Imamoglu defeated Erdoğan’s chosen candidate for mayor of Istanbul. Three years later, he was sentenced to prison for insulting the Turkish state.

But Turunc, the village’s former mayor, didn’t think the workers were to blame alone. “The municipal governments allied with the government were not subject to any oversight,” he said. “Biddings were made entirely on a personal basis.” He continued, “The zoning plan determines the floor area, and the city council decides on the zoning plan. The real crime takes place before the contractor goes to work. Why wasn’t this study done? Why didn’t the ministry warn people, why didn’t municipalities ask experts? Something was wrong from the start.” State officials are responsible for this. Instead of resigning or taking action, they are arresting many men.”

Kimyon spent the weeks after the earthquakes tending to his shattered, shattered city. Ibrahim Akin, a friend and political ally, told me, “When you go to the street with him, and people say, ‘Ercomment, brother, we need this,’ he answers right away.” Kimyon and Akın cleared the wreckage. Kimyon said, “This is the result of The construction industry’s desire to build on every empty space it finds in the city center.” “But we were somewhat lucky from Antakya”—an hour away—which is now a “dead city.” Kimyon’s aunt, who was ninety-four, lived in An apartment above a hotel in Iskenderun that had collapsed.She was presumed dead after the earthquakes, but three days later, when rescue teams sent dogs in, she was pulled out alive.Kimyon’s brother, who was in a wheelchair, lived in a building complex, called İnci Kent Kimyon had worked on it nearly thirty years ago. Insi Kent was damaged in earthquakes, and Kimyon arranged for his brother to be cared for in a nursing home. Kimyon, as usual, spoke to the local press, appeared on television, and gave interviews to online publications. He said For one website: “We ignored the existence of the seismic fault.” “Society’s value judgments have disappeared – rent seeking profit. They destroyed the concept of the public interest.”

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