Turkey’s economic growth would not be possible without poor working conditions

ISTANBUL — At the time of writing this article, at least 301 people have lost their lives in the Turkish district of Soma, where the largest mining accident in the country's history struck last Tuesday.

This is not, however, the first such incident in recent times. According to official statistics, more than 3,000 miners have been killed in Turkey's coal mines alone since 1941, and the largest tragedy before Soma left 263 dead near Zonguldak in 1992. Turkey has the highest death rate per million tons of coal in the world.

We might think that no politician in Turkey would or could make matters worse. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who seems to have become incapable of making a neutral speech on any subject, immediately proved this assumption to be false.

Arriving in Soma the day after the disaster, he announced to a crowd of miners and their relatives that “these kinds of accidents are in the nature of this work” and reeled off a list of other mining accidents from around the world, some from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Perhaps a clearer picture of his thinking was given after an accident in 2010, when he said fatalities are part of “the profession's fate.”

Apart from showing a spectacular degree of callousness, these remarks offer an insight into what we might call “kismet capitalism”; whatever happens is predetermined and inescapable. This, the true nature of Turkey's economic miracle, has revealed itself to be a common trick.

Until recently, Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party had presided over a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity. In its initial stages, the government seemed to have reconciled the qualities of being a trusted US ally, a promising candidate for EU membership and a beacon for Islamists in the Middle East.

When questioned by PBS's Charlie Rose about the corruption allegations implicating members of his government, Erdoğan said, “In twelve years we went from $230 billion to $820 billion. How could corruption be the basis of such development?”

Let us put aside the alleged corruption, which could only have amounted to a tiny percentage of the $590 billion in growth from 2002 to 2014. Instead, the Soma disaster poses a much larger question: how did anyone imagine that such growth was possible without poverty in basic working conditions?

Indeed, the company responsible for the management of the Soma mine, Soma Kömür İşletmeleri A.Ş., took the mining rights for 18 million tons of coal from the state-run Turkish Coal Enterprises (TKİ) in 2005.

In an interview with the Hürriyet daily in 2012, company CEO Alp Gürkan said they had cut the cost of coal from those mines from $140 per ton under the TKİ to $23.80, a reduction of 83 percent. The idea that the state mining body was wasting such a large proportion of its finances, rather than using at least some of it to guarantee workers' safety, is absurd.

Therefore, it is no surprise that Turkey is yet to sign the International Labor Organisation's (ILO) conventions on miners' safety, which were introduced in 1995. The Ministry of Labor's statistics report that only 9,000 out of 1.5 million workplaces were inspected in Turkey last year.

After saying that Turkey “will enter the ten largest economies worldwide” in a speech after the Soma disaster, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekçi added, “and we also aim to enter the world's top ten for human rights, rule of law, democracy, and working conditions.” The minister revealed the truth, in spite of himself, through his wording; Turkey “will” grow its economy, while the welfare of its citizens comes in a list of optional extras, name-checked for international approval.

Though dozens of countries have expressed their condolences, none has so far pressured Turkey to sign the ILO mining convention. This, a demonstration of genuine diplomatic concern for the lives of ordinary people, would likely be described as political interference. Meanwhile, the EU, Turkey's largest exports market, will continue to consume cheap Turkish goods, the Turkish elite will enrich itself further, and the labor conditions of the majority will remain unaltered.

And so we return to the subject of “kismet capitalism.” In a well-known hadith, or reported saying of the Prophet Muhammad, a man asks, “O Messenger of Allah, should I tie my camel and trust in Allah, or should I untie it and trust in Allah?” The Prophet replies, “Tie it and trust in Allah.”

Erdoğan and his brand of neoliberal Islamism untied the camels of Turkey 12 years ago. When they wander off into the desert, he has no right to call it fate or the will of God.

Joshua Allen has been living in Turkey for about two years, and works for Today’s Zaman, the country’s leading English-language daily.