Should the Red Crescent be like this?

The Red Crescent was an organisation that I had known since I was a little girl and that rushed to the aid of those in trouble, especially in health issues, treating the sick in disasters.  

Christians had the Red Cross and we Muslims had the Red Moon. 

Of course, disasters do not only require help in health. But for some reason, when I think of the Red Crescent, I always think of health aid.

And also the tents with the red moon on the side. 

Especially in earthquakes, but also in other disasters, the Red Crescent would provide tents where disaster victims who had lost their homes could lay their heads, a health tent and a dining hall tent would be set up in the area where the tents were placed, and everything else from food to other needs would be organised by the Red Crescent.

I remember the 1999 earthquake, I was in Russia at the time, and AKUT, the non-governmental organisation that pulled earthquake victims out of the rubble, was very prominent as a professional rescue team. 

In fact, all these rescue operations were carried out by military units and miners at that time. However, since AKUT was a team of professionally trained volunteers, it was capable of carrying out healthier operations.

After the 99 earthquake, the importance of organising these operations more professionally was understood.

OK, there was the Red Crescent, which was very useful in organising aid, there was AKUT, which was successful in rescue operations, the army and other organisations and volunteers were doing a very good job, but during a disaster, an organisation was needed to ensure coordination between these units and AFAD was established in this way.

AFAD is the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Interior.

What was the purpose of this organisation? Disaster and emergency management, coordination! 

Unfortunately, AFAD could not fulfil the service expected of it in this earthquake.

Now let's come to the Red Crescent.

As I said, what is expected from the Red Crescent is to help the disaster victims affected by the disaster under the management of AFAD after the disaster.

However, as a result of the government's utilisation of the Red Crescent for its own purposes, the loss of trust caused the Red Crescent to fail to collect enough aid and thus to lose power.

This situation led the Red Crescent to take some measures of its own.  

One of these measures was the transfer of tent production to a company it had established within its organisation. From then on, the tent company of the Red Crescent started to produce and sell tents to anyone who asked for them. 

Even the Red Crescent was buying tents from the tent company for money. Because even though the tent company was an organisation of the Red Crescent, it was a company in its own right. 

It could produce tents for those who needed them from abroad and those who wanted them domestically. Just give the money!

This was not only the case with tents, canned food could also be purchased from another Red Crescent organisation, and other things too!

The fact that this organisation was set up in this way and that there are commercial organisations affiliated to the Red Crescent can of course be criticised. 

However, if there is money involved, even if the source is aid, there will be those who are keen to manage it. 

Anyway, the aid money has to be managed.

However, if this business becomes a stash for someone, you will stop there! 

I wrote in my previous article that people are eager to make their own advertisements even in aid campaigns.

The Red Crescent is the same way, it is not so easy to find volunteer workers within the Red Crescent. The staff working there are paid very high salaries and this ancient organisation has become a stash in the hands of the current government. Since they cannot even share the spoils among themselves, they have established an autonomous, in a sense parallel Red Crescent in Istanbul.

They are also eager to open the subsidiaries of this ancient organisation to the stock exchange and turn them into a purely commercial gain gate.

Instead of having subsidiaries and turning them into commercial organisations, I will postpone to a future article how else this can be done, because I want to focus on the scandal that has erupted at the moment.

On the basis of the existing subsidiaries, what would normally be expected to happen?

As soon as the Red Crescent's tent production company received the news of the earthquake, it should have frozen and postponed the orders of all third parties that had ordered tents from it, and should have sent all the tents it had to the earthquake zone via the Red Crescent, and should not have accepted new third-party orders until all the needs in the earthquake zone were completed. In other words, it should have postponed the third party orders it had.

Because the purpose of its establishment was to meet the need for tents in the disaster zone in a possible disaster.

OK, in normal times, it may be considered normal to sell tents to other states in need of tents and to other non-governmental organisations established in Turkey in return for a fee. As I said, even this is not normal in my opinion.

However, if there has been an earthquake in Turkey and you are still accepting new orders and selling the tents you have with money to someone else, this can only be called treason. 

Normally, you are not a commercial organisation! 

You are a charitable organisation set up to ensure that things are done in an orderly manner. You are a Red Crescent organisation.

Even though the tents sold to AHBAP were sent to the earthquake zone in any case, and even though AHBAP made the distributions with the guidance of AFAD, it is not acceptable for this tent production organisation of the Red Crescent to sell tents for money in such a time of disaster. This is a scandal! It is a big scandal!

Please do not understand that I am criticising AHBAP from what I have written. 

AHBAP employees did what they had to do and found a way to deliver tents to the earthquake zone as fast as they could. Anyway, the existence of AHBAP stems from the distrust of AFAD!

So what is my criticism then?

After all, the purpose was achieved, the tents were delivered to the earthquake victims.

The problem is that even in a disaster such as an earthquake, the Red Crescent's tent production organisation is still selling tents with commercial concerns. This is where my criticism comes to a head!

But AFAD did not have enough power to deliver these tents to the earthquake victims and AHBAP was instrumental for this purpose, how nice!

If AHBAP had been directly asked for help in this matter, maybe there would not have been such a problem. They could have said we can't take it, take it to you! Even this is a problematic situation, but in a sense it is acceptable!

Our criticisms would have remained at the level of wondering why AFAD or the Red Crescent did not have their own forces to deliver the tents to the earthquake zone. 

But this is not the case.

Can you imagine, since the organisations that should have delivered the tents could not deliver them to the disaster zone on time, AHBAP said, "OK, brother, tell us the price, we will buy them with the money and take them to the disaster zone ourselves". So even this is a proof of how incompetent these government-controlled organisations are.

That is to say, an organisation whose sole duty is to help disaster victims in times of disaster, the Red Crescent, even in this difficult time, is not for relief purposes, but for commercial purposes!

Can you see the nuance? 

This incident shows me how far these organisations have lost their purpose, how much they have deteriorated, or how far from merit the administrators appointed by the government to head these organisations are.

Of course, it is not only these institutions that are rotting from within. There are many other state institutions run by people who are not even aware of their founding purpose!

After that, our hearts are shattered by the cries of many earthquake victims who cry out that the government could not extend a helping hand to the people in the first 48 hours after the earthquake.

The 48 hours I am talking about is that critical period in which many, many lives were lost. You know how they say that the first 72 hours are very important, two thirds of this period!

Tens of thousands of people died under the rubble because no helping hand was extended during this period. Honestly, I lose sleep when I think about the pain and suffering of the people under the rubble in their last hours. Imagine the situation of those who hear the voices of their relatives but cannot help them.

We are not a society worthy of experiencing these things! No one has the right to make us go through this.

I am not even going into the reasons why the earthquake turned into a disaster, the reason for all this is a collective carelessness and indifference. 

These wreckages are a destruction caused by being far away from science as a society, by cadres lacking morals, and the curses of the lives lost under the wreckages will surely be put in front of those who caused them one day as the crimes written in their notebooks and will be asked to account by Allah Almighty.

In a nutshell, this plundering organisation must be corrected as soon as possible.

I hope that society has learnt a lesson from what has happened and realised that change is necessary.

The cries of the masses at the matches are the harbinger of the collapse of the walls of fear and the beginning of nightmares for some.

I hope that these nightmares will not result in an increase in the repressive regime, which is already more than enough. 

But it doesn't matter, change is coming soon, the wind is already blowing!

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow