Video Commentary: Turkey’s Annus Horribilis
disasters-natural
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzBnaorbZ0c&t=769s[/embed]
Turkey’s Annus Horribilis
- When it rains, it pours. Turkey has been stung by a series of disasters this year, natural and man-made.
- Covid-19 waxed and waned through the year. Now, cases and deaths are rising again.
- A once-a-century drought is devastating farm communities and driving food inflation at a time when broad-based unemployment is 27%.
- Mucilage has sunk to the bottom of the Marmara Sea, still threatening marine life.
- Wildfires have sprung up in 15 provinces and at more than 180 locations. One is currently engulfing a coal-fired power plant, threatening the region with an unprecedented environmental disaster.
- While strangely these series of calamities don’t show in official economic data, public morale has sunk to the bottom.
- The common denominator of these horrible events? The Erdogan regime refuses to accept culpability.
- The next elections are scheduled for 2023, but the psychological shock of the Summer of disasters could precipitate a snap election to prepare for the 20-year Erdogan Era.
