Erdogan and the earthquake: misfortune or injustice?

For the political theorist Judith Shklar, modernity had a date of birth: November 1, 1755, the day of the devastating Lisbon earthquake.

The cause of such a picturesque statement is the extensive intellectual reaction that it aroused among some of the first enlightened people.

Voltaire dedicated a poem to him in which he attacked an abandoned providence at the hands of a supposedly good God, while Rousseau replied that we should stop looking for some design in the natural world or cry out against dark divine purposes;

The one who should be held responsible for such a dramatic result is the man himself.

Its effect would have been quite different if the people of Lisbon had not built such high houses or had not bothered to try to rescue their valuables instead of fleeing.

And Kant would later abound in the same idea:

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Turkey and Syria earthquakes, last minute live

In war-torn Syria, this terrible earthquake added the force of nature to the tragedy engendered by its civil conflict.

The result is in sight, a tremendous difficulty to access the affected areas and the practical impossibility of making international aid more effective.

It rains on wet, ruins on ruins, misery on misery.

In the most affected areas of Turkey it is inevitable not to wonder also about the hand of man, why some buildings collapsed like castles of cards while others resisted or why so many difficulties for the rescue to arrive on time.

What role does the greed of builders and/or the negligence, clumsiness and corruption of political leaders play in this result?

As Shklar herself warns,

behind many misfortunes there is almost always some injustice hidden, because many of its consequences could have been avoided and, in the Rousseauian way, point to some human responsibility, they are not just the blind display of natural forces or mere accidents.

"The dark forces that torment you, woman, each have a face, address and name", to say it with Brecht's verses.

And that goes for both Syria and Turkey.

Erdogan knows this, as do his potential voters.

There is also a precedent, the 1999 earthquake, which marked the beginning of the end of his predecessor in office, Bulent Ecevit.

The Turkish president is now walking around like a headless chicken spreading his presence throughout the affected areas.

A re-election that he believed to be assured is put into question.

Because what had been worrying the average Turk the most was not only his authoritarian turn;

it was widespread corruption among his cronies and the inefficiency of the state itself.

His undoubted international prominence does not just move to the interior of his own country.

And the Turkish diaspora in Europe is taking charge of giving the victims a voice, of enlightening them about so many injustices that are hidden behind the misfortune.

The shadow of Lisbon extends to Anatolia.

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