What is a state? Who is the state? What does this state do? We saw and learned again in the most painful and most furious state. The state became a freak as the Palace Regime is dissolving. Today, this is the state, it dissolves, and it governs only in this way. It is the one who does not do search and rescue after earthquakes, does not remove debris, does not try to heal wounds, does not do anything so that its people will die. This is the state. The state is the one who can say, with an angry face, and only after 33 hours when the most critical hours after the earthquake is said to be the first 72, that “We have declared a state of emergency,” and the one who with an angry face and almost as an enemy that they noted down those who died and those who tried to help.

Was there a need for a declaration of a state of emergency? Was a state of normalcy in order in this country? We know every state of them. While there are at least 300,000 people under the rubble, the enemy gaze has no power over anyone.

They say, “We have declared a state of emergency,” as if they needed a state of emergency to become the enemy of the people. This is an attempt to intimidate, with the hopes that it works. Aside from before, was there a “normal” situation since the Gezi Resistance? They are trying to intimidate by declaring a state of emergency as if no one has been detained for their social media posts, journalists have not been arrested for making news, states officials have not been appointed to replace elected municipalities; as if deputies, doctors, lawyers, students, academics and revolutionaries have not been imprisoned. We know their state of emergency and continue to do what we do.

Search and rescue teams, collection of aid boxes, solidarity tents, disaster coordination are carried out with volunteers. This is our reality. We are millions whose hearts beat together, we are the ones who mobilize to organize solidarity out of privation.

The destruction is huge. Our loss is huge. The pain is too great. The anger is too great.

We, the rest of us, who will heal the wounds in all this wreckage, will re-establish this life. In order to not allow them to leave us under the wreckage again like this, this time we must build this life, with our own hands. For this, we must transform the power we mobilize from today into continuity.

• The people in the earthquake area and the volunteers who set out from the first day established a disaster coordination center in order to organize search and rescue activities and to meet the daily needs of life. These centers created an opportunity out of nothingness and made an infirmary for first aid, toilets, and areas for the care of the elderly and disabled; they started the work of setting up tents for kindergarten and shelter. These centers should multiply and become widespread.
• No one is condemned to starvation when food stores are full. Generators standing in stores; foods and medicines in markets, warehouses; construction machinery and vehicles should be taken under control of and used by the coordination centers established by the revolutionaries and volunteers in order to meet the basic vital needs of the people.
• We must make the solidarity that we have established today for the earthquake zone permanent and more organized in every province. The way to do this is not to be content with providing supplies, but to receive more coordinated news from the region and to organize according to the needs of the region.
• The way to do this is, just as we participate in the removal of the wreckage today, to organize the work of providing shelter, health and education tomorrow; and take part in a long-term solidarity.

We are the ones who die while building these buildings, and we are the ones who die while living in them. We are the ones who make the cranes and work machines that do not arrive to the earthquake zone, and we are the ones who can use them. We are the ones who make the boxes for solidarity, we are the ones who make what is inside of the boxes, the blankets, the generators. We are not condemned to say “Where is this state”, we can build a new life with our hands.

Only we can save each other.

The state, which does not carry out search and rescue work, keeps the miners waiting at the airports, does not carry cranes, does not send all construction equipment to the area, that does not actually do any work, was able to declare a state of emergency only after 33 hours and declared the earthquake zone a disaster zone.

If we went to the disaster area, it would be a mess, we wouldn’t go to the rescue work, is that so?

As Akşener said, “we will not talk about politics and we will be silent,” is that so!

Are we going to donate 20 Turkish Lira to AFAD and sit down, is that so?

Currently, doctors are volunteers, miners are volunteers, construction workers are volunteers, women, students are volunteers, those who collect supplies, those who collect medicines are volunteers, everyone except the state is volunteering to respond to this disaster. The state, on the other hand, is only a volunteer to declare the state of emergency and prohibit solidarity.

But we do not have planes, trucks, construction equipment, food, water, medicine stored in warehouses under our control.

We are the ones who will best manage this process if they left it all to us, or at the least if they do not obstruct us. We have not reached this stage yet, but they are still afraid of us. Because there is no fear like the fear of those who sell their people, and it is this fear that will move them.

Just as the people in Adıyaman go to the governor’s office and fight for their lives, we have the power to mobilize all the means of the state. Let’s use it.

We see the ‘power’, police and gendarme of this state only when we go on strike, when we are on the streets for our rights as women, when we protect our forests. However, they have planes to carry search and rescue teams, and they have ships to send aid. Let’s take to the streets and fill the squares so that the state will mobilize all its resources to the people.

Let’s be the voice of at least 300 thousand people who were left under the rubble by blocking the incoming aid and not mobilizing sufficient opportunities, let’s make their voices heard, let’s shout out of the windows together, let’s make a sound.

Let’s come together as those who bear this problem, turn this anger and pain inside us into power and organize it.

“We do not have anything other than our own power to trust” Observations from Hatay

We reached Antakya from Istanbul with a group of 44 people yesterday evening. There was chaos in the villages and cities we passed along the way. While the people intervened in the wrecks with their own means, they were also trying to meet the minimum requirements for survival. We did not see anything on behalf of the state, except for local officials. Moreover, the local officials seemed to have no idea what to do. The only thing that dominated the whole was confusion.

When we reached the Armutlu Mediterranean Coordination Center, we saw that those who came before us and the local people started to organize all the basic needs in a short time like 40 hours under the leadership of the revolutionaries. While we were unloading the supplies from the bus, the search and rescue teams were returning to the center. Since there is no electricity or external lighting facilities throughout the city, search and rescue operations can only be carried out during the daytime. When the scarcity of excavation materials is added to this situation, search and rescue efforts become very difficult. However, hundreds of people can be reached with more equipment, just as dozens of lives have been saved with the limited work of volunteers. We quickly formed a division of labor among us and determined our friends who would participate in the search and rescue efforts at the first light of the day. We formed groups with experienced friends and health professionals. Experienced friends and health professionals organized trainings throughout the night.

The rest of us participated in the division of labor at the Coordination Center. In addition to saving people, survival is a real and serious issue. Here, three meals a day are provided, as well as the need for clothing. However, since only daylight can be used, the need for 24 hours is organized in 8 hours. For this reason, the need for manpower and material is very high.

There is no tent city in Antakya that people can use. People mostly use their vehicles or any solid enclosed places they can find. Heating and lighting at night is a big problem. Therefore, our first goal is to expand the coordination centers district by district and turn them into a tent city. As we write these lines, our friends are trying to make beds with very limited means. Today, we aim to turn a tennis court into a dormitory.

We need a lot of people and a lot of materials. Once again, we saw that we have nothing to rely on but our own strength. We can only remove the debris created by the earthquake in every sense with our solidarity. We will continue to convey our observations and studies.

February 8, 2023

18 cranes were able to set out 18 hours after the earthquake, 300 thousand people were able to be provided by housing in the region where millions of people spent the night on the streets, close to 7 thousand people were rescued in 18 hours in the region where there are about 7 thousand collapses, and more..

The continuation of this is the plundering of the three cents salary of the citizen, and asking for a donation of 20 liras by SMS as if earthquake taxes are not collected. They are attending the funerals and telling the tales of “we are partners in your pain”, “we will build earthquake housing”, “we will not collapse again”. This is what happens in the fires, this is what happens in the floods, and this will happen in the earthquake.

The state once again failed to rule, and will not be able to rule.

Let alone search and rescue, a disaster “management” that cannot even provide clean water, blankets and food is in effect.

Those who watch all this disgrace and curse those who say that they have mobilized all the possibilities of the state on the screens, those who look at the images of the wreckage on the screens and think that they can do nothing, those who look at the images of the disaster and mourn, should take a step and set off with supplies and basic necessities.

Tens of thousands of people trying to collect in-kind or financial aid, hundreds of volunteers, from doctors to miners, from teachers to university students, waiting to participate in search and rescue efforts, must step forward and act with a will to overcome all existing obstacles.

In such a situation, to make a decision by following the developments, to leave a gap for even a moment, means leaving millions of people alone with desperation.

Left-socialist organizations, unions, professional chambers should lead and coordinate these voluntary works, and develop initiatives to ensure that volunteers can reach the earthquake zone.

Don’t expect more. This is the state. That’s it.
Only we can save each other.