The 9th day of the disaster in Shirvan

When a person dies, a kind of Doomsday breaks out, both for himself and for his loved ones.

For those who live through that death, what does it matter what is happening in the rest of the world? His business with the world is now over. Trump has won in America; how will this affect the position of the US in the world in the new period, what repercussions will it have for Middle East policy?

The EP has decided to freeze negotiations with Turkey. How will Turkey's economy respond to this, will Turkey's axis shift a little further because of this decision? What were the details of the latest events in Syria?

Agents of which country, disguised as DAESH, attacked whom most recently? Where was the PYD coming from and where was it going? Where were those who had put their backs against the YPG now, was there any shared value that brought us together with them? How could these lands have produced such kinds of people? Will the Doomsday that has struck throw them too into the same crucible and grind them up, together with the YPG on which they leaned, and with the PKK, and with the EU countries on which all of them really lean their backs, and the Crusader spirit and presence within them? Where and how had their paths merged with FETÖ?

At the end of this Doomsday, will accounts be settled all at once, or one by one? Is a person's own Doomsday lived apart from the Doomsdays of others, does everyone live his own Doomsday alone by himself? What meaning does even this question have, at this point in the matter?

For 9 days I have been witnessing a small-scale Doomsday that has broken out at the mine in Şirvan.

During this Doomsday you feel how insignificant everything happening in the rest of the world becomes, how empty and meaningless it turns into.

There is a familiar belief that when a person lives his own Doomsday, even his closest ones feel this Doomsday very little. But I see that this belief has taken no account of the Doomsday felt while one waits, carrying the hope, however very very slim, of bringing one's relative out alive from under the earth.

You see during this time how another hope and another sorrow locks a person up as the hope of reaching one's relative alive slowly runs out: the hope of reaching the body of one's own relative, even if lifeless… All the hardship undergone to reach the dead body of one's relative; the strange joy felt when the result is reached. That joy is of course immediately followed by the mourning that the deceased demands of those left behind. The women will sing their laments, the men will shed their tears silently, and the body will be properly buried in the earth. With the prayer performed, the grave known, and all the procedure and etiquette that a funeral requires observed…

This is the right that the dead have over the living, and there is a consciousness that the soul of every body not properly buried makes a claim of right on those remaining in the world. When this right is not paid, something is always left lacking, and this lack can turn into a curse hovering over us.

The patient waiting at the mine in Şirvan continues in this condition. On the 8th day of the incident the 8th person is being brought out from under the earth. 8 remain. Their locations are being sought using all technological means, search dogs, and the information given by those who narrowly escaped the incident.

The accuracy of the findings is confirmed when the 8th person is found precisely where he was sought. The location of the remaining 8 has most likely been determined as well, but this is a landslide: 400 thousand cubic meters have covered 6-7 benches. Everything is taking place on an extremely steep slope under unbelievably difficult conditions.

Each one of those under the earth has dozens of relatives waiting. One has as many as 300 relatives. Another has 135 relatives at the scene, who have left their work and come, waiting patiently. They say, "We cannot go home without receiving the body; if we went, we could not enter the house." Everyone finds this situation quite understandable.

Meanwhile, those waiting follow the search work in every detail, trying to find and seek meaning in every movement of every machine, in the slightest lull in the search activity. This atmosphere provides the most conductive environment for gossip. Party representatives who come to exploit this conductive environment, and brokers who come to reap their own rents from the incident, are never absent from the scene. But after a while nothing remains of the atmosphere of the first day.

HUMANITARIAN AID AND THE ACTORS OF POLITICS

Energy Minister Mr. Berat Albayrak,

who was accompanying our President in Uzbekistan at the moment the incident became known, took charge of the situation from that distance and moved to the scene as soon as he returned. In addition to coordinating all the search and rescue work, the extraordinary finesse, skill and human sensitivity he showed in involving the victims' relatives in the process earned great admiration. He does not leave any question or objection from any relative unanswered, and answers everyone patiently, one by one.

The next day Health Minister Recep Akdağ,

and Minister of Labor and Social Security Mehmet Müezzinoğlu,

who came to the site, did the same, attending to the families one by one, noting down criticisms and suggestions about the activities one by one and including them in the process.

Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak,

who came to the scene the following day, is in constant contact with

AFAD President Halis Bilden,

who is in charge of AFAD, which reached the scene with its equipment only one hour after the incident and has been carrying out the search and rescue work from the beginning, and with matters related to the work. Wherever in the world there is charity work for the poor and destitute,

Veysi Kaynak

is involved with it. Since he is also responsible for the foundations, humanitarian aid and charity activities are entirely bound up with his person.

While organizing the search and rescue work in Şirvan on one hand, on the other, in the same activities, our country's other source of pride,

Turkish Red Crescent head Dr. Kerem Kınık,

was relaying to him some humanitarian situations in some country or other. At the same time he was trying to organize how to intervene in the worsening situation in Myanmar and how to deliver aid in the face of the hunger revealed by the latest developments in Syria. In Turkey, the leader of humanitarian politics, I have been watching the actors of this politics at work at the mine accident site for 9 days, and I witness with great admiration the finesse and depth in their every move.

AFAD, the Red Crescent, UMKE

are truly the heroic actors of Turkey's humanitarian politics.

In particular

AFAD President Halis Bilden

reached the disaster site within only a few hours of the incident and did not leave until the last hour, day or night; he was with the families, grieved, wept, and listened patiently even to their harshest criticisms.

Likewise,

Siirt Governor Mr. Mustafa Tutulmaz, Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security Orhan Yeğin, Siirt AK Parti provincial chair Özgür Çalapkulu, Siirt AFAD provincial director Cahit Akkoyun, Kızılay President Yener Tanık, Gendarmerie provincial regiment commander Colonel Halidun Eren, Deputy Undersecretary of the Energy Minister Abdülkerim Yörükoğlu, and the teams whose names I could not write one by one

and many more nameless heroes provided, in this process, an impressive example of why Turkey stands at the front of the world in humanitarian aid and politics.

May God be pleased with them all. I pray for God's mercy upon the dead, and offer condolences and patience to their relatives.