Cooking one's own egg while forests burn

We are evidently facing a very strange disaster. Fires breaking out at the same time at dozens of points in many places in Türkiye leave, at first glance, no possibility other than sabotage. For that reason no one allows any room for the possibility that the fires started by natural means; everyone is in search of an arsonist perpetrator. Who else could the usual suspect be in these cases but the PKK? In any case, the fires of last October too had been claimed by a group belonging to the PKK that calls itself the "children of fire."

On these fires too, before this group had even claimed the incident, everyone placed all the responsibility on it. If they were willing to go this far beyond humanity, it would of course be a very, very great gravity. One does not want to expect this even from such a terrorist organization, from which one has come to expect everything. But one who has done it once can always do something bigger. Therefore, and unfortunately, it is expected.

Still, a margin of caution does good. Thank God an unexpected caution formed in society against this possibility. The flames grew, engulfed far wider areas, reached far more uncontrollable dimensions, and in the meantime somebody claimed all the fires in the name of the "children of fire" in question, yet despite this, caution was not let go in this area. The social fire that was being attempted to be lit in this area did not catch, and went out before it grew.

Interesting, and I think in part what did not allow this flame to grow, is that the same event is occurring in the same way at many points of the world. Not only in Türkiye but in Italy, Greece, Spain, Romania, Russia, Australia, Canada and the USA as well, forest fires are breaking out at the same time and none of them can be easily brought under control.

Evidently we are facing a serious global fire disaster. California's beautiful forests have been burning since the beginning of July and these fires cannot be brought under control despite all efforts. Dozens of homes have turned to ashes, more than two hundred thousand hectares of land have been completely burned, and the fire is still advancing.

It looks as if forest fires are at present a global matter. It is not a subject concerning only Türkiye. In this respect it needs to be addressed separately. In the struggle against fires, each country is trying to cope with these fires with its own means. In such disaster situations, nothing is more normal than for countries to be in solidarity. Sometimes countries, seeing it as an opportunity to show they stand by one another, send symbolic aid teams. Whether or not to accept this aid is not only a matter of whether it is needed. In such situations, giving an opportunity for a show of goodwill of this kind is also part of the etiquette of a healthy relationship.

If the disaster cannot be overcome, there is nothing odd about asking for help. In the earthquake disaster it experienced on 17 August 1999, Türkiye was truly in need of every kind of help in the most urgent manner. For that reason the disaster victims were not even in a position to look at where the help coming to them came from. The institutions of the state had collapsed, and there the aid of Türkiye's civil society organizations and the rescue teams showed that Türkiye does not consist of the state alone, and that when the state collapses they have the potential to revive it. But since that day the state in Türkiye has not shown helplessness in the face of any disaster. Many earthquakes were experienced, many floods were experienced, and now the covid19 pandemic disaster is being experienced, but Türkiye is mounting the most successful struggle in the face of this disaster that the whole world is dealing with simultaneously.

At present, a desperate struggle with all available means is also being waged against the fire disaster occurring at more than a hundred points. There is no country in the world that could intervene in a fire at more than a hundred points of the country at the same time. The USA is the most powerful one, and cannot. Even so, Türkiye is struggling far more effectively than the USA in intervening against the fire. May God protect from worse, but when the performance displayed in the struggle against fire is compared with other countries, the difference in Türkiye's favor is immediately noticeable. Even so, the fires cannot be extinguished at once; before one ends, another begins elsewhere. As in the other countries encountering this disaster at the same time.

But while living through this disaster, we see that something worse than this disaster is possible. That is the malicious intent of trying to extract political gain for oneself from disasters.

Generally, disasters are expected to develop in a society a common language, feeling and attitude of sensitivity. Indeed, disasters are expected to bring about a rapprochement for the solidarity of a society, and therefore between lives, outlooks and attitudes that are normally divided, and normally this is what happens. What is happening in Türkiye right now is probably not happening in any of the other countries living through the same fire disaster. In none of the countries that are, while trying to cope with the fire disaster, far behind Türkiye, are artists, politicians or anyone else trying to extract so much coal for themselves from the situation. Everyone has agreed in one voice and is praying to come out of this disaster together, supporting one another. Because this fire is burning all of us, and at present we have no means other than the existing organizations to struggle against it.

The haste to tear off a piece of the fire and throw it at the other side, to burn one's opponent: it looks as though extinguishing the fire created and enlarged by this haste, and treating the burns created, will be much harder.

Those artists who, at every moment of crisis, come out like lead soldiers and make their art speak in order to fan the fires with bellows, it turns out what experts they are in fighting fires! How much they know about aircraft models, and about which kind of aircraft or vehicle can extinguish which kind of fire more effectively! I think this know-it-all attitude is becoming our most serious problem. When the artist's artificiality, with its skill in distorting reality, is mixed into this know-it-all attitude, the matter turns into heavy provocation.

Of the ways of pouncing with great excitement on the idea that Türkiye needs help, it is only the haste to try to cook the chronic opposition's eggs over the fire that appears in the ugliest form.

May God make the end good.