Financial Times Newspaper which released in United Kingdom, In It’s news titled “Erdogan (President of Turkey) is under pressure due to Turkey’s response to forest fires”, in which he evaluated the forest fires in Turkey, explained how the unpreparedness in the fight against the forest fires in Turkey received from a response from the public and Erdogan offered actual tea of the victims of the disaster. He commented on how his launch was received.
Turkey has been fighting the big fires that started on 28 July in Manavgat and one day later in Mugla for 9 days, and it still goes on in eastern cities with increased tree, animal, human and living place loss.
In the news, “While Turkish firefighters are struggling with forest fires in White Sea Region, He was criticized for his government’s intervention in the flames, which the President describes as the worst fires of the country’s history.
Writers of the opposite party of the government said that 13 thousand hectares of forest burned and fires continue in many places, and also said that there are no planes or helicopters in the air yet because the government never spent money on such air vehicles for an extreme case. Later the government hired helicopters in order to fight with the fires but the government did not allow for air vehicles to take off.
Turkish citizens have been devastated since the beginning of the fires and the government did not or could not do anything to stop it. Number of fires are significantly decreased at the present time but the people of the country, the victims tried their hardest in order to stop it, plus the tea event, which made the public that government was ignorant and irresponsible.
What do you think the President was trying to do when he threw tea at people in a such case?
Do you think the government didn't stop the fires on purpose?
Links:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/08/07/turkeys-deadly-fires-raise-the-heat-for-erdogan
Replies
Tolga,
This is more of a story summary and less of a "hot take". I really want to see your thoughts and opinions more within your post. Keep that in mind for the next time. Also, with ony a few replies, be sure to comment to everyone.
I feel like the Turkish government could have handled this better. I believe that it was rather rash to do something such as through tea at your own citizens in pure exasperation. Erdoğan was obviously underprepared for a situation like this -- and the sad part was that he didn't even act on it at first. He hired aircraft, but never sent them into the air. Turkey now has to rely on foreign aircraft in order to keep the fires at bay. I think that Erdoğan should figure out a way fast on how to stop the fires and appease his citizens.
In my opinion, I think he could've handled the situation better by actually doing something that would stop the fires instead of just throwing tea at them. there might be reasons they could probably be doing it on purpose but it's kind of hard to find a reasonable one.
I believe that the Turkish president could have handled the situation way differently. In a way, it seems as if he doesn’t care about the wildfire and how it is affecting the citizens. I had to go in and read a few articles in order to further understand what was going on, and it seems that a lot of people also didn’t feel that the president was doing the right thing. I read that many people were upset that Erdoğan and the rest of the government didn’t know how to react to the people’s needs during this crises. I’m not completely sure if I believe that the government weren’t sending out aircrafts on purpose. I do know that other countries sent out firefighting aircrafts in order to help Turkey. I believe that the president should be held accountable for not handling the situation better and that it wasn’t right for him to throw tea at people who have been badly affected by the fires.
Sources: https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-forest-fires/erdogan-visits-disaster-a...
https://www.voanews.com/europe/fires-rage-turkey-anger-grows-over-g...
I agree with your opinion, either Turkish government or citizens have never seen this incident before. Yet I think decisions that Erdogan made was really discussable and questionable. I believe that throwing actual tea at citizens won't be really humble or relieving.