Daily Times

Within the space of a couple of months, we witnessed three accidents involving the deaths of hundreds of people in each case. The tragedies spanned three countries separated by physical distance and cultural attitudes. Curiously, too, one happened in the air, the other at sea and the third, literally, inside the earth, 400 metres underground. I am referring to the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines plane with 227 people on board, the sinking of the South Korean ferry, Sewol, which left more than 300 people dead or missing, and, finally, the mine disaster in Turkey, which killed over 300 miners.

In each of them, distraught relatives and friends protested for days, blaming the respective governments for delays, incompetence and neglect. It is worth noting in each case the public behaviour of the highest authorities of the land, besides the handling of the tragedies by the respective governments.

First comes the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. The Malaysian government has been criticised for its indecisiveness, lack of transparency and general incompetence. One thing, however, stands out — the humility with which the transport minister and the prime minister appeared before the press. Although they did not say so, their expressions were highly apologetic. A sense of embarrassment and shame was discernible from their looks, if not words. The second accident involved the sinking of a ferry on the southern shores of South Korea in which almost all the victims were school students heading for a holiday. The president, Park Geun-Hye, was constantly involved in the rescue and salvage operations. She appeared on television, making an unconditional apology with tears rolling down her cheeks. “The final responsibility for not properly dealing with this incident is placed on me,” she said. She has apologised at least three times. Now, moving on to the third in this unconnected series of accidents, to the Turkish mine disaster in Soma. Here we had a completely different response from the highest officials of the state, including the prime minister.

To begin with, the ruling party, Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Hüseyin Çelik reminded the grieving relatives of the dead and trapped miners as well as the lucky survivors that mining is a risky job: “If you go out to sea, you might get caught in a storm.” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan went further, telling a news conference at the site of the disaster that accidents were the “will of God” and mining disasters happened everywhere.

Searching for numerical equivalence, he went as far back as 19th century UK, callously observing that accidents are “what happens in coal mining. Let me go back to the past in England, in a slide in 1862, 204 people died, in 1866, 361 people died and in an explosion in England in 1894, 290 died.”

As if these verbal insults were not enough, physical assault was added for good measure. Yusuf Yerkel, adviser to the prime minister, was seen kicking a protestor as police officers detained him during a protest against Erdogan’s visit to Soma. Erdogan himself was caught on camera telling a protester that anyone who insulted the prime minister of the republic deserved to be slapped. Stooping even lower, the government started dropping hints of a Jewish conspiracy. An article on the front page of the pro-government newspaper Yeni Akit declared that the son-in-law of Alp Gurkan, the owner of the Soma mine where the disaster occurred, is a Jew. The prime minister himself reportedly accused one of the protesters of being an “Israeli spawn”.

All this from a government that has been repeatedly criticised for neglecting the safety of mines in pursuit of nepotism and profits. A recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) cited Turkey as having the highest number of fatalities from workplace accidents in Europe — two to four deaths per day in 2012!

The village at the centre of all this consists of just 120 houses in a mountainous region. At least one male member of every local family works in the mines. Nearly every family here has lost one male member and many have lost more than one, even three or four. What now binds these families together is shared bereavement, and yet, the prime minister failed to utter a single word of regret over the deaths.

Turkey belongs to that part of the world where accepting one’s mistake and apologising is considered tantamount to dishonouring oneself and one’s family. One is always expected to hold one’s head high, however low one may have to stoop to achieve this. Here one kills others, even one’s closest kin, to save one’s honour and such murder is honoured with the name ‘honour killing’. Showing humility is considered self-humiliation. Personal pride is protected by the denial of wrongdoing and by going on the offensive. Every difference of opinion is a zero-sum game, where there are only winners and losers. Compromise is a loss of face and there is nothing worse here than to lose face. Witness Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Three countries, three cultures and three different reactions to accidents, to which the incompetence of the concerned governments is believed to have contributed.

Malaysia is a Southeast Asian country. Southeast Asians, from Vietnam to Burma, are known for their personal humility and self-effacement. South Korea belongs to East Asia where people kill themselves to preserve their honour, rather than live with shame. However, in Turkey, as throughout the Middle East and Central Asia and, by extension, Pakistan and parts of western and northern India, people will kill others, even their own son or daughter, to preserve their own ‘honour’!

The writer is a former academic with a doctorate in modern history and can be contacted at www.raziazmi.com or raziazmi@hotmail.com