TURKEY EARTHQUAKE – a discriminating disaster

I have just returned from Syria, four days before the earthquake hit.  My heart is broken.  These are my thoughts as the memories are still settling in my heart

A powerful  7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria early Monday morning, 6 February 2023.  By Wednesday 15 February, a week later, more than 41,000 people have been confirmed dead, and tens of thousands more injured. Officials continue to update the death toll as rescue efforts continue.

Communities were destroyed as thousands of buildings collapsed in both countries.  Syria, with unstable buildings due to a prolonged war, is a major concern, in particularly north-western Syria where more than 4 million people are already relying on humanitarian assistance.

The quake, with the epicenter 23 kilometres east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, is one of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years.

Multiple strong aftershocks have been felt across the region for hours after the first quake, including a severe quake measuring magnitude 7.5.  According to the page of the International Earthquake Center for the region of Turkey, Syria, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, from today until the end of the month, the following could be expected:

• 800 light earthquakes
• 70 ~ 80 medium earthquakes
• 3 ~ 4 strong earthquakes up to 8.25 on the Richter scale
• The most dangerous days predicted are 10 and 22 February.

But natural disasters do have the ability to discriminate on the grounds of what man creates.  When tragedy strikes, there will always be a clear divide between the ‘fortunate unfortunate’ and ‘unfortunate unfortunate’. And even though the individual sufferings of those affected by the earthquake can, and should, never be compared to one another, it is important to understand the accumulative sufferings of communities within the context of their existence.  An earthquake in Europe and an earthquake in Syria will by no means share the same accumulated suffering, nor will they suffer the same consequences.  Where a natural disaster is a temporary tragedy in a vibrant community it becomes an opportunity for people to rebuild and reconstruct.  It doesn’t lessen the hardship, but it does alleviate the longevity of suffering.  Lives, economies, and living conditions can be restored within a decade and will erase the momentary memories of trauma.

Not so in Syria!

For the people of Syria, it will take generations to rebuild lives.  There are five reasons why the earthquake places Syria on the edge of an epic tragedy, even more so than Turkey itself.

1. THE DISCRIMINATING DESTRUCTION OF WAR.

Unlike Turkey, Syria is still in the process of recovering from a devastating and destructive twelve-year war.  The earthquake did not come as a new disaster, it came as an aggregating factor to an already destroyed infrastructures and depleted resources.  Hospitals are understaffed and overcrowded.  Doctors are overworked and under-resourced.  Medicine is unavailable.

Aleppo was Syria’s most populous city when the civil war arrived in July 2012.  But this changed dramatically during the war.  According to a study done by UNITAR in cooperation with UNESCO, Aleppo has the highest number of destroyed/severely damaged buildings in Syria at a total of 35,722 buildings, of which 4,377 are completely destroyed, 14,680 severely damaged and 16,269 moderately damaged. While Eastern Ghouta in the Damascus metropolitan area stands close in second place.  An estimated 40% of all buildings in Aleppo have been partially or fully destroyed.

Most of these buildings are unstable and hanging by a thread. The added danger during a natural disaster is that many buildings have been re-occupied by their owners and placing them in an extremely vulnerable situation.  One small tremor can result in many deaths.

2. THE DISCRIMINATING DESTRUCTION OF SANCTIONS.

The western world needs to acknowledge the consequences of their inhumane act of war.  Destroying a nation through military engagement might topple political leaders, but an economic war through sanctions kills millions by slowly starving a nation to death.

On 17 June 2019, Syria was dealt an economic blow as the USA enforced the toughest U.S. sanctions yet.  The new law, Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, prevented anyone around the world from doing business with Syrian officials or state institutions or from participating in the war-ravaged country’s reconstruction. This applied to missions, humanitarian work, relief work, medical assistance, and any other form of development.  Analysts predicted that the sanctions will be a heavy blow to a country where, according to the United Nations, eight out of 10 people earn less than $30 a month. The Syrian government called the sanctions “economic terrorism.” The Syrian pound has plunged 70% in that year alone, almost in tandem with the economic woes of neighbouring Lebanon. Prices of essential goods rocketed beyond the reach of many, forcing people to stand in queues for 10 hours just to get a bag of bread.

The act was ironically called the CIVILIAN PROTECTION ACT and yet to consequences were that civilians are starving and facing ice winters without shelter or protection.  The main cause of death currently in Syria is people freezing from the cold.

Even though the Western world cannot be held responsible for the earthquake, there should be accountability for what happened pre-quake and responsibility for what happens post-quake.

3. THE DISCRIMINATING DESTRUCTION OF HOPE.

It is said that if you want to destroy a man, take away his hope.  The same can be said of a nation.

In Syria today there is no electricity, very little fuel and gas, a shortage of food, very little medicine, under-equipped hospitals and doctors are leaving the nation. A number of Syrians told us that they long back to the days of the war – not because those days were easier, but at least they could face the hell of war with food in their stomachs.

Hope is a precious commodity that seems to disappear when one loses sight of it.  Keeping a focus on hope has become key for many Syrians in surviving daily life.  If your home is destroyed during an earthquake but you have insurance and still have the prospect of finishing your studies once everything is back to normal, hope will keep you alive.  When you have lost everything during a war and fighting off hunger and cold, and an earthquake hits your city, the discriminating destruction of hope will destroy everything that kept you alive.

4. THE DISCRIMINATING DESTRUCTION OF NARRATIVES.

Let’s be honest – BRUTALLY HONEST – Western media has never portrayed the war in Syria in a non-biased way.  Western forces were always depicted as the liberating heroes while President Asaad and his Russian allies were the dictatorial aggressors.  Not so!

We came to understand Syria as a nation where people hated their leader, that he was a monster, and that “good” freedom fighters were trying to liberate the country from a “bad” dictator.  Nothing is further from the truth.

Syrians were always portrayed as either the aggressors or the victims.  The average Syrian was never portrayed as the wonderful, friendly, hospitable, generous, and kind people that they are., but the narratives we were fed in the west created our perceptions which in turn formed our realities.

Through the eyes of the “White Helmets”, the media arm of the freedom fighter rebels and ISIS, we were given a picture of a nation in a civil war where people are killing their own people.  Nothing is further from the truth.

These narratives have created a selective compassion and have favoured one nation at the cost of another.  Ukrainian refugees were accepted in Europe by the millions while Syrian refugees died on the borders.  This is the consequence of destructive narratives.  This will now add to the hardship of the people.

The truth is that the Syrian war was a proxy war with more than 30 nations and groups fighting one another within the borders of a sovereign nation whose people were living peacefully with one another until other nations decided they needed a new system of democracy.

5. THE DISCRIMINATING DESTRUCTION OF DIGNITY.

One thing the West has achieved in more than a decade of war is to rob the Syrian people of their dignity.  Syrians have been deprived of telling their own stories, sharing their own narratives, and explaining their own conditions.  Every time I travelled to Syria I came to a new understanding of the deep contradicting schisms of narratives that I hear in the west and then listening to Syrians; peace-loving Syrians, generous Syrians, and laughing Syrians.

Syrians have been robbed.  Not of their archaeological sites, fuel, and gas, but of their dignity.

SO, LET US PRAY

• Let us pray that the war will finally come to an end that this earthquake will draw people in need together to serve and alleviate the mutual hardship. Even enemies can become friends when both find themselves drowning and they need one another to stay afloat.
• Pray that sanctions will come to an end. Pray that the gates of support will open up and provide the necessary relief.  Pray that the Church in the West will respond in a compassionate and abundant manner.
• Pray for hope. Hope that is found in eternity, in Christ, and in redemption
• Pray for narratives to transform. Only changed narratives can lead to transformed lives.  Pray for your own narratives to transform by the renewal of your mind. (Romans 12:2)
• Pray for the restoration of Dignity. God is using this season in Syria to draw Syrians to Him as a witness in the Middle East.  May the Syrian Church grasp this reality and may this restore their dignity

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/middleeast/live-news/turkey-earthquake-latest-020623/index.html