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Our candidates for Person of the Year 2011 included Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel. The prime minister received the nomination for bringing his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to power for its third single term by receiving 49.9 percent of the nationwide vote, whereas the chief of General Staff deserves praise for working in harmony with the civilian authority, not meddling in the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer coup trials and for the Turkish military's successful anti-terrorism operations after he assumed his post.
Other candidates were Hatice Belgin, the mother of four who threw herself onto a suicide bomber to protect her children in Bingöl in late October and lost her life; AK Party deputy Şamil Tayyar, who sent a letter to President Abdullah Gül in mid-December asking him not to approve the amendment to a law covering sports crimes that would reduce prison terms for those convicted of match-fixing, in a major match-fixing case that rocked Turkish football this year; and finally Minister of Family and Social Policy Fatma Şahin, who launched an effective fight against domestic violence and has taken some important measures to protect women from being subjected to violence after she was appointed to her post following the June 12 general elections.
The benevolent people of Turkey came out on top of other candidates for Person of the Year with their notable and praiseworthy efforts to distribute food, clothing, money and other forms of assistance to disaster victims in Turkey and abroad through various Turkish charity organizations.
When a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast in Japan in March, creating a tsunami that swept over much of the nearby countryside, the Turkish people did not remain indifferent to the tragedy in Japan, where more than 15,000 people lost their lives and thousands of others were left homeless.
Thanks to donations from Turkey's generous people, the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay), Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anyone There?), the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH) and some other relief foundations were able to dispatch humanitarian aid packages including food and medicine to Japan. These foundations also sent doctors, experts and logistics workers to the region to help assess the damage. The amount of humanitarian aid sent to Japan by the people of Turkey exceeded 50 tons.
The summer of 2011 saw the most severe period drought in 60 years in poverty and conflict-stricken Somalia, where many people had to flee their homes in search of water and food and seek refuge in refugee camps in neighboring countries. Up to 12 million people in the Horn of Africa have been affected by famine, according to the UN.
The Turkish people again did not remain indifferent to the humanitarian crisis in that country and rushed to aid Somalia with massive relief efforts.
Turkey initiated a nationwide aid campaign to help Somalia. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the Somali capital of Mogadishu and several refugee camps in the country in August, pledging more aid in cash and infrastructure.
Turkey sent eight planes and four ships with humanitarian relief supplies to Somalia and collected more than $300 million for the famine-stricken country.
Several Turkish broadcasters raised around TL 50 million in August during fundraising telethons to help the starving people in the Horn of Africa. Celebrities and public figures helped raise funds and personally took telephone calls during the telethons from people wanting to pledge donations for Somalia.
Kimse Yok Mu Chairman Ünal Öztürk said back then that the organizers were happy with the interest people showed. “Apart from the numbers, the interest of our people in such charities is very important. A lot of celebrities and businessmen helped out. A little girl gave us her pocket money. This aid will reach the places where it is needed,” Öztürk added.
Since Turkish people had been so generous in their donations to disaster stricken countries, it was unthinkable for them not to extend their helping hand once more for the victims of the two major quakes that hit the eastern province of Van in October and November.
The first quake, which hit in October, measured 7.2 on the Richter scale while the second one was a magnitude 5.7 earthquake. The quakes claimed the lives of more than 600 people and left thousands of others homeless. Just before the beginning of winter, quake survivors had to face the dire circumstances of living in a tent in the freezing cold.
Aid campaigns were organized across all provinces of Turkey to help quake survivors. The amount of aid people sent to Van was so immense that it even led to coordination problems regarding its distribution.
In October, several TV stations participated in a joint charity telethon for Van and raised TL 129 million. There were also individual efforts to send aid to Van as many families packed their own aid and sent it to the province.
In addition, people across the country opened their homes to the quake victims.
For instance, a retired teacher, Leyla Ülker Aslan, set an example by allowing a family of quake survivors to use her two-storey house in the northern province of Trabzon. When Murat Yol, a friend of Aslan's, told her that a friend in Van and his family were living in harsh conditions, sleeping in a car with inadequate heating, Aslan suggested that they come to live in her house in Trabzon, which she was not using. Upon Aslan's invitation to Trabzon, the family of 12, including three children, came to live in her house.
Some hotel owners in Turkey's south also invited quake victims to spend the winter at their hotels for free.
There were many gripping stories coming out of the relief effort as in the case of one man [whose name was not disclosed] from western Turkey, who sent his coat in an aid package to quake-stricken Van. He had slipped a note in the pocket that read: “I wish you a speedy recovery, my brother. I went through what you are going through now during the Gölcük quake [in 1999]. Don't hesitate to call me at this phone number whenever you need help.” Three days later, the owner of the coat received the following text message: “May God be pleased with you my brother. I am now warm thanks to the coat you sent me. I promise if you fall one day, I will help you pick yourself up, too.”
Taking all this into consideration, Today's Zaman editors thought “the benevolent people of Turkey,” who showed their sensitivity to people's needs in times of disaster and helped them generously throughout the year regardless of ethnicity, religion or color, deserve the title “Person of the Year” most.