The war of disinformation

A summer to forget for Turkey, that of 2021, when everyone hoped that it could represent the season of a long-awaited recovery, after the "depression" of the global pandemic from Covid-19. The latter is statistically reaching its heights just when, for example in Europe, the phenomenon seems to be returning, albeit slowly, within slightly more reassuring margins. What's more, the country on two continents experienced the most catastrophic summer ever in terms of forest fires, with a 755% growth in devastated areas: something like 177,476 hectares of forest burned in 2021 alone, with a provisional budget of eight people died, along with thousands of animals.

All this despite the alarms launched well in advance by the forest control bodies, also in relation to a really worrying drought, combined with the significant increase in average temperatures. Organizational deficiencies and inefficiency have aggravated the budget, triggering the classic phenomenon of the rebound of responsibility between central government and local authorities, in front of which public opinion has also tried to react with commendable initiatives from below, a sign of a certain civic spirit. , even in the face of growing mistrust in institutions. The symbol of this jolt were the thousands of posts on social networks and, above all, the hashtag #helpturkey, which went viral in a few days with over 2.6 million tweets, summarized in a desperate call for foreign intervention, in the face of uncontrollable and, above all, uncontrolled calamities.

At this point, the propaganda response of power immediately took place which, however, instead of illustrating the concrete actions in defense of the national heritage and the rights of citizens, hurled itself with unprecedented vehemence against the "traitors of the means of social communication", guilty of a real media coup d'état, designed to weaken institutions by presenting the image of a country in distress.

The Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu (Supreme Council of Radio and Television - RTÜK), fined FOX TV, KRT, Tele 1, HaberTürk, Halk TV and TR 35 for their coverage of the fire emergency and a counter-campaign has begun with conspiracy trolls and hashtags such as #StrongTurkey and # WeDon'tNeedHelp. It is difficult to calculate the true impact of this unconventional war with the weapons of "mass disinformation." On the one hand, conspiracy theories have extremely dangerous implications, feeding the paranoia of citizens who, convinced that the fires are the result of terrorist attacks or of enemies in the nation, spontaneously organize armed squad groups, which set up checkpoints, arrogating themselves the right to request identity documents from passers-by!

On the other hand, the flood of information can no longer be controlled at will by just one of the parties in the field and, whoever really wants it, can now access non-drugged information on reality. This is presenting the account of years of negligence of policies in the management of disasters and emergencies, combined with increasing corruption, uncontrolled urban and industrial expansion, in total indifference to climate and environmental issues (remember that Turkey has refused, among other things, to ratify the Paris climate agreements). When it is learned that the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture, while not having a single usable firefighting plane, has spent 7.2 million Turkish Lira (725,000 €) to rent a fleet of blue cars for its officials and 755,000 € for the setting up of the gardens of the Presidential Palace but was unable to find € 400,000 to put the old firefighting planes parked in a hangar into operation for years, it is difficult not to suspect that the worst enemy of the homeland is the current leadership .

Meanwhile, the water arrived in early August, but in the wrong region: not in the fire-ravaged southwest but in the north-east, the western Black Sea region, in the form of catastrophic lightning storms, with a much more severe death toll of the fires themselves: already more than 40 units but with hundreds of missing.
Once again, relief efforts arriving with tremendous delay and ordinary citizens fighting desperately and even a little fatalistically against events. When we say rain in the wet!

Claudio Monge
NP August / September 2021