Filenews 9 February 2023
By Bobby Ghosh
The photos and videos coming from Syria and Turkey after Monday's twin earthquakes mobilise my worst memories of human tragedy – and my best experiences of human perseverance. In a previous phase of my life as a correspondent abroad, I covered the aftermath of two of the most devastating earthquakes of the 21st century: in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2001 and in Haiti almost nine years later. The gruesome sights, sounds and smells of pain are painfully familiar to me.
The role of civil society
I am also aware of the awe of the heroic response to the disaster by local non-governmental organisations and other civil society groups. Their role is central to the rescue, relief and reconstruction efforts that follow any natural disasters.
Just as important as providing immediate assistance to victims - building makeshift shelters, distributing food, water and medical assistance - NGOs have a responsibility to monitor government efforts, ensure a fair distribution of aid, protect against corruption in the allocation of resources for reconstruction and proper accountability for failures.
Gujarat, where there was a plethora of NGOs with deep local roots and long experience, recovered relatively quickly from the earthquake. Haiti's recovery has been hampered by the systematic undermining of the civil society ecosystem during the long periods of repressive dictatorship there. The enthusiasm and resources of international NGOs could not fully fill the gap.
The tragedy that Syria and Turkey are now facing comes at a time when civil society institutions, and NGOs in particular, have been greatly weakened by war and vindictive government policies. In Lebanon, which was less affected by the earthquake, civil society is hampered by years of political and economic chaos.
According to at least one measuring factor, civil society participation in the three countries shows a dramatic deterioration over the past decade, especially in Turkey:
When disaster strikes, less open societies have fewer hands to help
"Enclosed" oppression
Civicus Monitor, a global civil society alliance that monitors the freedoms of political space around the world, rates Turkey as an "oppressive" country, in the same category as Russia and Syria as "landlocked", similar to China. And Freedom House, a Washington-based think tank, gives Syria a score of 0/4 for cooperative and organizational rights. Turkey receives 1/4.
The Syrian civil war, which is now in its 12th year, has strained the resources of the few NGOs that are able, faced with enormous difficulties, to operate in the country. Most of those living in the earthquake zone are opposed to the government of dictator Bashar al-Assad, which means they can expect little help from Damascus. In fact, we may never know exactly how many people were killed, injured and left homeless by the twin earthquakes.
On the other side of the border, many of the victims in Turkey are refugees from the Syrian civil war. Their number, however, will be far exceeded by Turkish citizens: the region accounts for about 15% of the country's population. President Tayyip Erdoğan declared a state of emergency in the region hit by the earthquake, but his government has already been "blocked" in the face of logistical challenges of providing aid to 13.5 million people.
In other words, Erdoğan needs as much help as he can get from NGOs, both local and foreign - the same organisations that his government has weakened over the years, enacting laws that extend government control over civil society, limiting NGO funding and forcing many of them to shut down in the country.
Erdoğan is not alone in this: populists everywhere around the world see civil society groups as a threat to total control of the state. In recent years, the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi - ironically, born and raised in Gujarat - has eroded the space of civil society and restricted NGOs, "earning" for his country the same rating as Turkey from Civicus Monitor.
Turks will hope that state-approved religious groups can perform some of the functions that usually belong to NGOs. But while mosques and churches are excellent conduits for relief efforts, they are not particularly good at forcing governments to be honest.
Lives
Erdoğan's irritation about Turkish civil society can only hinder the government's response to the earthquake. And the consequences that will result will expose him to criticism in the run-up to the general elections scheduled in Turkey for 14 May. Erdoğan, in his speech announcing emergency measures, fired a pre-emptive shot at his critics: "This is not the day of discussion with them, [but] when the day comes, we will open the notebook we keep."
The threat is anything but "subtle" made. "He warns journalists and civil society: we will repress you if you criticise us," says Nate Schenkkan, senior director of research at Freedom House to counter authoritarianism. "He's trying to short-circuit any talk about responsibilities."
All this may seem somewhat academic at the moment to the Turkish NGOs which are trying to respond to the disaster. In the coming days, they will undoubtedly demonstrate the extraordinary energy and resilience that I have seen in Gujarat and Haiti.
When, however, they stop to take a breath, they probably wonder how much more help they could provide — and how many more lives they could have saved — if presidential paranoia hadn't "weakened" their hands.
